‘Prometheus’ actor sues over use of his fake avatar in Venezuela

His name is Dan Dewhurst, he is an actor who starred in Prometheus, Dark Crystal And stands and who came out to warn against signing contracts AI avatarsafter his face was used to sell a misleading propaganda campaign about Venezuela.

In particular, the British actor’s AI was used as a news anchor, spreading false information promoted by the government of Nicolas Maduro.

Dan Dewhurst released a statement through British actors’ union Equity about his experience warning others.

Dewhurst said he signed a deal with technology company Synthesia in 2021 to become one of the first actors to be portrayed as an AI avatar. He auditioned for the role of Avatar and got it, but was leery of the general terms of the contract, so he contacted his agent and Equity. The concerns were repeated and Dewhurst said he and his lawyers tried and failed to change the contract, but they showed him a booking confirmation that stated the avatar could not be used for illegal or questionable purposes, he said.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Dewhurst said. “My stomach dropped. Everything I was worried about happened, but a thousand times worse. “I’m literally the face of fake news.”

Synthesia version

In a conversation with Deadline, a representative from the technology company Deadline, the creator of these AI avatars, expressed his point of view.

“We take the concerns of the talent we work with very seriously and recognize that content moderation and combating harmful content is an ever-evolving challenge.” The company said it has since made changes, including “explicitly prohibiting the creation of news content through the use of stock avatars by non-media organizations,” strengthening its content review processes and hiring more content moderators. “We sincerely regret any negative personal or professional impact that these historical incidents have had on the people you spoke with,” he added. “We have reached out to some of the entities affected by the issues mentioned above and explained our efforts, but if we have missed anyone, we value your feedback and want to listen and act accordingly. Many of the actors we work with come back to collaborate with us for new shoots… At the beginning of our collaboration, we explain our terms of service and how our technology works so they know what the platform is capable of and what security measures we have in place we provide. implemented,” he added.

A Synthesia spokesperson added: “We are the only AI video company that applies extensive content moderation during the creation phase. Before a video is created on our platform, it goes into a moderation queue and is reviewed for compliance with our content policies through a combination of automated systems and human moderators. Using this workflow, we detect the majority of malicious content attempts, including misinformation/disinformation, scams, scams, intimidation and harassment, and explicit content.”