I’m sitting on the tube on my solution to a casting when opposite me I see an ad for an insurance company. The model looks similar to me, but something is unsettling concerning the picture. I’ve never done a shoot for this insurance company, but I recognise my features, and the pose, hair and make-up are just like a shoot that I did back in 2018 for a Paris-based magazine. I take an image of the ad but attempt to dismiss it from my mind. Possibly the model just looks like me and it’s all a coincidence? A number of days later, I delete the image because it is making me feel uncomfortable.

A number of months have passed once I see a recent advert from the identical insurance company using a special model. Immediately, I recognise the familiar face of a friend, although her features are once more barely distorted. This time, I notice a transplanted digital mouth which makes her resemble a mannequin from the uncanny valley. After some research, it slowly dawns on me – we had been AI’ed without our permission; our faces and bodies changed into digital dolls to advertise a project we had no part in. And to make matters worse, I can’t even prove it or do anything about it, for the reason that regulation around AI is a gray area. In spite of everything, who really owns my face?

Corporations have been using AI models for a while now without anyone noticing. Accessing the technology is becoming increasingly easy, and shortly it could possibly be so simple as fooling around with ChatGPT or trying on the Daring Glamour filter on TikTok. Last yr, Sara Ziff, founding father of advocacy group The Model Alliance, told The Guardian that they’ve been receiving a growing variety of calls from models who were being body scanned after which losing the rights to the image of their bodies. “We’ve particularly heard this from fit models, who’re concerned over how their personal information can be used or capitalised on without their permission,” said Ziff.

Within the UK, there’s been an identical worry from models over their likenesses getting used without their knowledge. “We’ve got a variety of concerned messages asking what could possibly be done,” Elizabeth Peyton-Jones, founder and CEO of Model’s Trust which advocates for safer working environments for models, tells Dazed. “I feel there’s a variety of fear, but there’s a sense of helplessness.”

It takes just a fast Google to find the growing variety of AI-generated model firms. There’s Deep Agency, which allows someone to create a “digital twin” model by uploading 20 images of an individual in various poses. Unless users then delete their images, the uploaded photos shall be used to coach the platform’s AI model. Then there’s Amsterdam-based agency LaLaLand.ai, which guarantees to “create models in five minutes” to assist brands turn out to be more ‘inclusive’: “Present your garments on a various range of models. Position yourself as an inclusive brand, increase your engagement, and drive more sales.”

The legal and ethical battles between AI and the creative world have only just begun. While some copyright laws protect things like artwork and music, in the case of faces and who owns a person’s likeness the lines turn out to be more blurred. Models don’t have ownership of images which can be taken of them, whether that’s for an editorial, industrial shoot or paparazzi pictures taken without consent – as many celebrities have discovered. In 2019, Emily Ratajkowski was sued for $150,000 for posting an image of herself taken by paparazzi on Instagram. Now, a lot of these images are a part of datasets getting used to coach and be replicated by AI.

From an ethical standpoint, it seems pretty obvious that in the case of our own data – our face, bodies, bone structure, poses, etc – we should always have rights over what it’s used for. But legally, what can someone do to guard their face? As many victims of deepfake revenge porn have discovered, oftentimes there isn’t very much that will be done.

“In some jurisdictions, for instance the US, court will recognise an individual’s publicity or image rights,” says William Wortley, an associate at Bird & Bird, certainly one of the world’s top law firms in the case of Mental Property. “This allows them to guard elements of their personal characteristics, including their name, signature, likeness and image. To have the opportunity to implement such a right, they have to typically prove that the characteristic they’re concerned about will be used to discover them, in addition to that they’ve suffered some industrial harm from its use.”

Within the UK, nevertheless, Wortley says we wouldn’t have a standalone ‘image’ or ‘personality’ right that might enable someone to forestall the replication of their face or image. “As such, someone in search of to forestall the usage of their image or likeness needs to take a look at other ways of doing so.” These other ways could include having the copyright owner of the image – typically the photographer – sue for copyright infringement, or make a “passing off” claim which is when an organization’s use of somebody’s image or work falsely suggests that that person endorses the corporate’s product. For instance, Rihanna successfully claimed passing off against Topshop for producing a picture of her on a t-shirt without her permission. 

Nevertheless, because generative AI as an area continues to be relatively recent, legal systems are still attempting to meet up with all of the implications it brings up around mental property and copyright infringements. “Over time, more certainty will hopefully emerge regarding how AI technology will be used, including in respect of the photographs (or images) of individuals resembling actors and models,” says Wortley. 

Except for the legal questions around what images and likenesses will be used to coach AI models, generated AI models have also sparked fears for the long run of human models, particularly POC models who appear to be the most at risk from being replaced by digital doppelgangers. Some within the industry remain optimistic, nevertheless. “Ultimately I take a look at this as more of an advancing art form. I don’t see this technology replacing the necessity for real-life models,” my agent Jordan Shiel says. “Fashion campaigns are there to attach the brand with the patron – mainly through emotion – due to this fact we’re at all times going to have that need for real-life human models which the audience can aspire to.”