Investigate motives

The Hangzhou procuratorate in Zhejiang Province exposed a "group of goddesses", many of which sent obscene videos that were synthesized by criminal suspects using "AI face changing" technology, and could also be "privately customized" according to customer needs; The police in Gaoyang, Hebei Province cracked a case of making, selling, and disseminating pornographic materials for profit, in which the suspect taught himself "AI face changing" technology through social groups, and used celebrity images to make pornographic videos and sell them online at a price of 10 yuan per 300 minutes... Recently, cases and news about "AI face change" have aroused social concern and concern.

With the development of artificial intelligence, the technical threshold of "AI face changing" has gradually decreased, and there are more and more application scenarios, while meeting people's needs for curiosity, beauty, social networking, etc., controversy and even illegal and criminal acts caused by "AI face change" are common, and the hidden black and gray industry chain behind it has gradually surfaced.

What is the chaos of "AI face change"? Is it legal to use the star image "AI for face"? Where are the boundaries of technology application? Around these issues, the reporter conducted investigative interviews.

□ Zhao Li, reporter of this newspaper

□ Intern Hu Miao

"Can you teach me how to shoot this?"

"Click to enter the full tutorial in the lower left corner of the video."

"Don't you kiss whoever you want?"

"Just follow my tutorial."

This is a conversation between a short video platform blogger and his fans. The blogger, known as a special effects artist, released a number of short videos of intimate pictures of film and television dramas, and "changed" the male protagonist to himself, attracting a lot of traffic. In the face of fans' advice, the blogger said that he provided "mobile film and television co-production tutorials", priced at 99.99 yuan.

Similar bloggers who sell "AI face change" technology, as well as apps and mini programs that provide "AI face change" technology. A recent investigation by a reporter from "Rule of Law Daily" found that at present, teaching "AI face changing" technology, providing video customization "face changing" services, and even selling obscene videos of celebrities' "face changing" on online platforms has become a business.

The interviewed experts believe that technological development is an unstoppable trend, and technology applications are often ahead of the emergence of risk response methods. In addition, the legal regulation and enforcement effectiveness of technology research and application needs to be further improved.

The app is easy to download

Provide a portrait for customization

On the e-commerce platform, the reporter used "face replacement", "deepfake" and "professional customized face replacement" as keywords to search, and saw that many merchants claimed to be able to provide services such as "face change" and "AI face change" in film and television dramas, and the price was basically between 10 yuan and 200 yuan.

Regarding the use of "AI face changing", a merchant on the e-commerce platform put it this way: "You can become Zhang Wuji in "The Legend of Relying on the Sky and Slaying the Dragon", you can become Lan Yuji in "Chen Qingling", or Lin Daiyu in "Dream of Red Mansions"... You only need to record a short video to send to customer service, and here you can synthesize the same video for you, adding a style to your youth. "For this service, the coupon purchase starts from only 23.8 yuan.

In the mobile application store, the reporter searched for "AI face change" as a keyword, and saw that a number of "AI face change" apps came into view. On a social platform, the reporter searched for "face change" and also saw many mini programs about "AI face change".

The reporter downloaded one of the most popular apps. The App has a variety of "face changing" templates to choose from, including AI painting, film and television dramas, temperamental beauty, men's exclusive, etc., and you can generate "face changing" videos by uploading photos with one click.

If you want to use the "AI face changer" function on these apps and mini programs, you need to pay for it. Take the app tried by the reporter as an example, the weekly membership is 17 yuan, and the annual membership is 398 yuan. The reporter purchased a weekly membership of 17 yuan, and after registering a mobile phone number and agreeing to abide by the relevant synthesis regulations, he imported the video material and pressed the "click to make" and "start production" buttons to swap the faces in the video material.

Some sellers not only provide "AI face changing" services, but also provide "face changing" technology teaching services, further lowering the application threshold of such technologies.

On an e-commerce platform, the reporter contacted a merchant operating the "AI face change" business, and there was this description on the product details of its "smart face change": "You can spend the lowest cost to optimize the display of work resumes... Let you have the rich qualifications of a big guy when you first come out of the rivers and lakes, and ride the dust among the competitors who are employed. ”

According to the merchant's customer service, if you want to "change your face", you only need to prepare two parts of materials, that is, face materials containing facial information and content materials that provide body and background, and after the merchant's operation, finally "the two are combined to form a finished product". As for the price, the merchant will make the final price according to the workload and difficulty, the reference price is 1 yuan within 60 minute, and more than 1 minute is calculated by seconds according to the interval, such as 3.0 yuan per second for more than 9 minutes, 10.0 yuan per second for more than 7 minutes.

At the same time, the merchant also provides "AI face change" teaching packages for customers who "have the heart" to learn: a self-study package is 180 yuan, a tutoring package is 360 yuan, and a teaching package is 720 yuan. According to the needs of consumers, merchants provide teaching services of corresponding levels and prices.

The teaching content is 100 yuan

Technical dissemination or infringement

What are the specific teaching services of "AI face change" technology? The reporter spent 99.99 yuan to buy a relevant package from the blogger known as the special effects artist, a total of 7 lessons, each course duration is 1 minute 9 seconds to 3 minutes 45 seconds, the total duration of the course is less than 20 minutes, the core courses include "erase the characters in the video, how to use masks, how to cut out the character composition", these courses are mobile phone screen recording.

According to the instructor, making a "face change" video requires multiple mobile apps, but it is not complicated - take a frame of a character from a film and television clip, use an erase pen to erase the character you want to replace, save the photo and edit it. However, before the official editing, you still need to prepare another piece of material, that is, I recorded the actions and lines of the characters in the relevant clips in the green screen.

After this series of operations, the special effects artist can replace Stephen Chow and the heroine Zhang Min in "The Gambler" to return the conversation; became Xu Jiang and Gao Qiqiang in "Crazy" in the road drama; replaced Chow Yun-fat as Little Pony in "The True Color of Heroes"; In a 19-second film and television drama clip, he even replaced Guo Jingfei and was kissed by Di Li Gerba.

After purchasing the course, the special effects artist invited the reporter to join the course group chat, and unlike the tens of thousands of people who participated in the learning as claimed, there were only 18 people in the group plus the group leader. No one in the group spoke, only showing that an ordinary group member was "banned for 30 days" by the administrator.

The special effects artist told reporters that after the course is completed, you can go to production. The computer side can produce richer "face change" videos, but the price is 4 times more expensive than the mobile phone.

The reporter noticed that some users in the comment area raised questions: Is the "face changing" technology teaching service suspected of infringement? Bloggers are noncommittal.

In this regard, Shen Chen, an associate professor at Wuhan University Law School, said: "If the technology disseminates 'AI face changing' technology through online platform sales and social platform teaching, if the technology disseminator obviously knows that this technology is likely to be used to make obscene materials, such a situation can be judged to constitute aiding infringement." ”

Shen Chen further analyzed that Article 1169 of the Civil Code stipulates that anyone who instigates or assists others to commit infringement shall bear joint and several tort liability. Compared with aiding infringement, the subjective malignancy of abetting infringement is more serious, and if some people use online platforms to actively induce others to learn the "AI face-changing" technology to commit infringement, it can be recognized as abetting infringement.

There are risks behind the face change

Application boundaries need to be clarified

Another question is: what legal risks and infringement disputes are hidden behind using other people's portraits to make "face-changing" videos without authorization?

The reporter consulted the aforementioned special effects artist blogger, and the other party replied that "the video 'face change' does not involve infringement, because film and television dramas are public, if infringement, then those film and television clips and film and television commentary are infringing", and said that he had not encountered relevant disputes since his career.

However, the legal analysis given by the experts interviewed was the opposite.

Zheng Ning, director of the law department of the School of Cultural Industry Management at Communication University of China, told reporters that using other people's portraits to make "face changing" videos without authorization may be suspected of constituting infringement of others' portrait rights and reputation rights. Whether it is the operator of the "face changing" app or ordinary netizens, who, without the authorization and permission of the film and television drama copyright owner, provides the film and television clips after the "face change" to the public through the network, so that the public can broadcast it online or even download it at a time and place selected by them, etc., may be suspected of infringing the information network dissemination right of the film and television drama copyright owner. At the same time, if the main purpose of the original film and television drama clip is distorted or tampered with after the "face change", the most common form is parody, and it may also infringe the copyright owner's right to protect the integrity of the work.

Zheng Ning believes that if the "AI face changing" technology is used by criminals to be used for fraud, pornography, theft, spoofing, illegal profit-seeking, etc., it will cause great harm, not only infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of others, but also endangering social and public safety.

Zheng Ning introduced that there are currently no relevant industry specifications to clarify the specific application of "AI face changing", but it stipulates the boundaries that "AI face changing" behavior should observe. The Provisions on the Administration of Deep Synthesis of Internet Information Services (hereinafter referred to as the Provisions) clarifies that deep synthesis services must not be used by any organization or individual to produce, reproduce, publish, or disseminate information prohibited by laws and administrative regulations, and requires that deep synthesis service providers establish and complete mechanisms for refuting rumors. This delineates the "bottom line" and "red line" for the technical application of deep synthesis services.

"The issuance of the Regulations shows that the relevant departments have consciously regulated artificial intelligence deep synthesis technologies, including 'AI face replacement', but the document does not restrict the scope and purpose of application of face replacement technology." In Shen Chen's view, "AI face changing" involves people's portraits, which are more special and sensitive than other personal information. "AI face swapping" technology will lead to confusion about the identification of personal identification information, which in turn will lead to chaotic information dissemination. Therefore, the scope of use of this potential hazard needs to be limited.

So, where is the application boundary of "AI face change" technology?

Shen Chen believes that two application scenarios can be considered: professional film and television production, on the premise of obtaining actor authorization, can legally apply this technology; Netizens use it for entertainment, such as making some "face swapping" videos between acquaintances for entertainment.

"This involves how to understand the licensing issue, according to the relevant regulations, 'AI face change' needs to obtain the other party's portrait rights authorization." The form of model release can be understood in two ways: first, as long as you do not object to your use of my likeness, the informed consent process is completed; Second, the portrait himself must express his intention in order to obtain authorization to make an 'AI face changing' video. Shen Chen said that the two understandings of the form of authorization may have to make a value judgment, and obtain the permission of "AI face change" through active consent, although it is conducive to protecting portrait rights, but it is not very in line with the concept in social communication, but if the first understanding is adopted, it may bring the cost of post-regulation, so the application boundary of "AI face change" needs to be further explored through social practice.

Establish a security assessment system

Improve the supervision and prevention system

In response to the chaos of "AI face change", in recent years, the Cyberspace Administration of China, local Internet police, procuratorial organs, etc. have coordinated and cooperated, intensified the rectification and crackdown, handled many civil and criminal cases, and issued a number of policies and regulations to strengthen governance.

China's Criminal Law, Civil Code, and many laws, regulations and policy provisions, such as the Provisions on the Administration of Online Audio and Video Information Services and the Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecology issued by relevant state departments, all involve the regulation of deep synthetic applications, tort liability, and other content.

On April 4, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued the Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services (Draft for Comments), which provides more detailed provisions on the generative AI industry, including definitions, access qualifications, responsibilities and obligations, and penalties.

"In particular, the Provisions have taken a very important step to prevent the social harm and legal risks caused by deep synthesis technology, realizing that it has been created from scratch and has a special supervision system for the application of deep synthesis technology." Shen Chen said that some specific measures still need to be refined, such as how to do the security assessment system required by the Regulations, who will do the assessment, and what are the assessment standards? These need to be refined in conjunction with industrial development, technical background and expertise.

In Zheng Ning's view, China lacks overall legislation on artificial intelligence and industry norms for artificial intelligence ethics, although the current relevant laws also have corresponding provisions on the "AI face change" may infringe on privacy, reputation rights, portrait rights, personal information, copyrights, and the harm to network security and data security, and the relevant regulations of the Cyberspace Administration of China also regulate algorithms, deep synthesis technology, and security assessment, but how to achieve a balance between AI industry innovation and national security and personal rights protection. There are still some ambiguities in how to delineate the boundaries of the rights, obligations and responsibilities of all parties.

"The rights and interests violated by the 'AI face change' technology are very sensitive, and the speed of transmission through the network is fast, the scope is large, and the impact is wide, which makes it difficult to prevent it, and it is difficult to achieve the desired regulatory effect only through post-event accountability." Therefore, a unique regulatory system should be designed from the three levels of technology developers, network service providers and users. Shen Chen said.

Shen Chen suggested that developers of "AI face change" technology and corresponding technology companies should establish strict filing procedures and security assessment systems. At present, the "AI face change" technology is still relatively rough, but through optimization and iteration, the future will definitely be efficient and realistic, so the spread range must be reasonably limited. In order to control the source of technology, the future regulatory system can try to require technology developers to reserve a "technical watermark" in the technology, that is, if the user applies the technology to make a video, traces will be left in the video file, then the network platform can quickly identify that the video is made using "AI face change" technology.

For network service platforms, Shen Chen suggested reviewing the user information of the use of the upload video service, that is, grasping the identity of the AI synthetic video producer, so as to determine the responsible person when legal risks arise in the later stage. The platform also reviews the video content through technical methods, identifies whether there are synthetic elements in it, and labels it. At the same time, when the platform receives a notice of legal risks in synthetic video, it needs to establish a complete response mechanism in accordance with the obligations of network service providers stipulated in the Civil Code. In addition, in the process of using online platform services, if users find that there is a "AI face change" video suspected of legal risks, they must have a sense of reporting.

"When the above three links have established a regulatory mechanism, combined with the investigation of the legal responsibility of violators, a more effective prevention system will be formed to deal with the legal risks of 'AI face-changing' technology." Shen Chen said.

Zhang Yanlai, director of Zhejiang Kenting Law Firm, who participated in the legislative work of the e-commerce law, proposed that to control the abuse of "AI face-changing" technology, in addition to legal channels, it is also necessary to introduce social forces, especially commercial forces, just as computer viruses need to introduce anti-virus software to curb it. However, we should pay more attention to the beneficial effects of the technology itself, and abuse can be cracked down on in accordance with the law, and we should not be too afraid of the technology itself, but should learn and embrace new technologies.

"Any technology is a double-edged sword, or it depends on who uses it, how it is used, and how it is used in violation of the law and how it is held accountable." AI face changing has positive significance in some scenarios, such as film and television production, advertising, etc., and should not be completely denied, but it is also necessary to fully understand its risks. Zheng Ning concluded.

Manga / Takakashik