The conversation around artificial intelligence has largely centred on what the technology can create. Increasingly, however, creatives are asking a different question: who owns the people and work that made those creations possible?
Cate Blanchett is among those pushing for answers, co-signing the launch of the Human Consent Registry, a free online platform designed to help people control whether artificial intelligence systems can use their name, voice, image, and likeness. Here's what you need to know.
What is the Human Consent Registry?
The platform was developed by nonprofit organisation RSL Media, which Blanchett co-founded. It is designed to give people a simple way to communicate if and how their identity can be used by AI systems. Users can register consent, refuse permission entirely or set conditions around the use of their likeness, voice, and movement.
The tool has obvious implications for actors like Blanchett whose careers depend on their public image, but it also concerns creative industries more broadly. For creatives whose careers are built on their image or original work, the platform offers a way to assert that consent should remain part of the creative process.
Cate Blanchett has been outspoken about AI regulation
The Human Consent Registry is the latest in Blanchett's ongoing campaign for better AI safeguards.
Earlier this year, she joined hundreds of actors, musicians and creatives, including Paul McCartney and Ben Stiller, in signing an open letter urging the US government to preserve copyright protections as technology companies seek broader access to creative works for AI training.
Her nonprofit, RSL Media, launched in May with backing from some of Hollywood's biggest names, including Javier Bardem, Viola Davis, Tom Hanks, Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep.
"AI technologies are expanding rampantly, essentially unchecked and unregulated," Blanchett said when announcing the Human Consent Registry at at the European Parliament in Brussels. "In order for humans to remain in front of these technologies, consent must be the first consideration."
