Taylor Swift Explicit AI-Generated Deepfakes Are ‘Alarming and Terrible,’ Microsoft CEO Says: ‘We Have to Act’

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has weighed in on explicit AI-generated deepfakes of Taylor Swift that have gone viral across social media this week.

In an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt, Nadella said, “First of all, absolutely this is alarming and terrible, and so therefore yes, we have to act, and quite frankly all of us in the tech platform, irrespective of what your standing on any particular issue is — I think we all benefit when the online world is a safe world.” In an NBC Nightly News exclusive, “I don’t think anyone would want an online world that is completely not safe for both for content creators and content consumers,” Nadella said in the interview. “So therefore I think it behooves us to move fast on this.” Asked about the consequences of AI, Nadella called out “all of the guardrails that we need to place around the technology so that there’s more safe content that’s being produced.

And there’s a lot to be done and a lot being done there.” The Microsoft CEO said “law enforcement and tech platforms” can work together and that “I think we can govern a lot more than… we give ourselves credit for.” Microsoft’s own software may have played a part in the creation of the Swift fakes: The images may have originated in a group on Telegram, where users share pornographic AI-generated images of women; one of the tools the group uses is Microsoft Designer, a free AI-based image generator, according to a report by 404 Media.