A SENIOR congressman from the Bicol Region on Monday called for the passage of a bill that regulates Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to address fears over potential threats to undermine political elections in the country through illicit digital platforms such as deepfakes or altered audio-video materials.
“The warning by [Information and Communications Technology] Secretary Ivan John [Uy] on the threats that deepfakes and generative AI tools pose to the electoral process should prompt us legislators in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to write new legislation regulating the use of AI technology in this third and last regular session of the 19th Congress,” said Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte.
Villafuerte seeks congressional action on his House Bill 10567 that penalizes producers or distributors of “deepfake” audio, visual or audiovisual materials who fail to make public disclosures that these are deepfakes, or AI-altered visual and/or audio presentations.
HB 10567 proposes fines ranging from P2 million to P5 million for producers or distributors of deepfakes who do not make any disclosure in these materials that these were altered with the use of AI or any other similar technology, as well as on those who delete or tamper with such disclosures in these AI-modified voices or images, said Villafuerte.
During the recent first broadcast of the “Malacañang Insider” program, Uy tackled the rise “scamdemic” using deepfake and generative AI tools which, he said, should be addressed as it is now causing huge losses in other countries.
As defined by the Presidential Communications Office (PCO), “deepfake” is a technology tool used to “make something appear supposedly real. It is often used for voice and video images by replacing somebody else’s voice, video image, or photo over an existing image.
“Deepfakes and generative AI tools are also threatening the electoral process when unscrupulous individuals use them for political gain. Especially during elections, where they use them whether to malign or to discredit certain people by attributing quotations or phrases that are extremely unpopular and then making it appear that that person uttered those statements,” Uy said.
“And that becomes even more destructive, if let’s say, they’re released, a few days before, people cast their ballot, so that there is no more time anymore, for the real person to say, ‘I never said that’,” he added.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline Act now on proposed AI regulation bill, Villafuerte urges lawmakers
