[bcrl]

However, some forms of generative AI are clearly harmful and should not be released to the general public. Take tools that can clone someone's voice with a few seconds of data. The legitimate use of such a tool is basically limited to special effects in a small number of movies / radio plays where the original speaker is dead or otherwise unable to be recorded again. However the developers have released these tools to the general public, and they are now being widely used primarily to scam people via grandparent scams and fake endorsements of scams by celebrities.

Personally, I think the people that released these tools should be held to account for the harm they are causing. I get that it was a cool thing to do, but the harm of their release is far, far greater than the benefit to humanity. As the developers of these tools clearly aren't considering the consequences of their release to the general public, there is a need for governments to step in and regulate.

Furthermore, this isn't a new phenomenon in the tech industry. The checks and balances that existed in advertising prior to online advertising taking over the world were irresponsibly discarded by companies like Google. Organizations like the various Advertising Standards bodies serve a purpose: to protect the public from harmful content, including scams. Instead we have a tech platform that has completely removed humans from the ad sales loop, which has resulted in ads for scams showing up higher in search results than the actual content. Combined with the decision to blur the visual differences between ads and legitimate search results, it is very difficult for less discerning individuals to avoid phising and other scam websites. I've seen this with my own eyes where my elderly father gets highly targeted ads online for scams that don't show up when I do the exact same search from the same local network.

Maybe computer scientists need to be required to take ethics and sociology courses to teach them why these things are bad.