FKA Twigs Testifies As Congress Makes Early Moves On AI Abuse Protection For Artists

During testimony before a Senate panel Tuesday, FKA Twigs revealed she’s created deepfakes of herself and pushed lawmakers to erect legal guardrails to protect artists and other creators from AI abuse.

“In the past year, I have developed my own deepfake version of myself that is not only trained in my personality but that also can use my exact tone of voice to speak many languages,” she said. “These and similar technologies are highly valuable tools. This, however, is all under my control and I can grant or refuse consent in a way that is meaningful.”

The deepfake can communicate in English, French, Korean and Japanese. She said she uses the technology to interact with fans on social media, freeing her to focus on her art. She, however, urged lawmakers to move forward with nascent legislation that would provide protections against unauthorized AI creations.

“What is not acceptable is when my art and my identity can simply be taken by a third party and exploited falsely for their own gain without my consent due to the absence of appropriate legislative control,” she said.

Her testimony was part of a Senate Judiciary Intellectual Property subcommittee hearing focused on the focused on the bipartisan Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act – a proposal from by Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) that would offer federal protections against the use of non-consensual digital replications in audiovisual works or sound recordings for all Americans.

It echoes the first-of-its-kind ELVIS Act in Tennessee, a piece of state-level legislation that adds artists’ voices — and importantly, AI simulations of a recognizable voice — to the Volunteer State’s four-decade-old Protection of Personal Rights law, and provides district attorneys the ability to prosecute the unauthorized use thereof as a Class A misdemeanor and allows individuals, their estates and labels and others rights-holders the ability to seek civil damages.

Critics have raised First Amendment concerns, but SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said unbridled AI restricts the free expression rights of the impersonated.

”I am concerned that we are only looking at one side of the First Amendment consideration here,” he said. “The other side is the right that each of us has to our own freedom of speech to be able to communicate our ideas, to associate ourselves with ideas that we want to so and not be associated with ideas we disagree with – that is being really trampled on by this unfettered ability of people without a federal right.”

Coons said he will formally introduce NO FAKES this summer. The similar No AI FRAUD Act is moving in the House of Representatives.