Wellington: New Zealand MP Laura McClure has taken a bold and strong stand against the misuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deepfake technology. The leader who represents ACT New Zealand, held up a naked, manipulated image of herself on the floor of Parliament. The incident happened last month.
MP highlights dangers of deepfakes
The powerful act by McClure was an attempt to highlight the potential dangers posed by deepfakes. She mentioned during her speech in the country’s Parliament that the image took less than 5 minutes to create online. It was censored by the broadcasters.
Speaking in Parliament on May 14, she said, “This image is a naked image of me, but its not real.” Talking about the dangers posed by deepfakes, she said, “For the victims, it is degrading, and it is devastating. It gave me the creeps having to stand in Parliament and hold up the photo of myself, even knowing that it’s not actually me.”
Warning about how deep a problem deepfake is becoming, she wrote on her social media account, “Today in Parliament, I showed an AI-generated nude deepfake of myself to show how real – and easy – these are to create. The problem isn’t the tech itself, but how it’s being misused to abuse people. Our laws need to catch up.”
In an interview to a news channel, McClure described the moment as “absolutely terrifying”. She said that though she knew that the image was fake, the entire incident was deeply disturbing.
Talking about her decision to show the image in Parliament the MP said, “I felt like it needed to be done; it needed to be shown how important this is and how easy it is to do, and also how much it can look like yourself.”
She demanded that the law which makes it illegal to share nude photographs without consent to include deepfakes. She said that the deepfakes are as harmful, if not more harmful, than nudes, because people can put anyone in all kinds of depraved videos. She highlighted that the problem was not exactly the technology, but its misuse.
