in the world of artificial intelligence technology deep fakes are becoming more and more of an issue sometimes they're used on politicians and celebrities to deceptively show them saying something they didn't or looking a certain way but they've also been used to Target women and girls in unflattering ways the assembly today considering bills that would hopefully prevent deep fakes and hold perpetrators accountable senior correspondent Joanna gagas reports from Trenton it is here now right and we need to figure out how we can alleviate what's going on what's going on are deep fakes video image and audio files that are manipulated to show a person doing or saying something that never actually happened a package of bills with bipartisan support is moving through the legislature to address it today several were up for a vote in the assembly Judiciary Committee we spend billions of dollars a year um trying to fight uh the perpetrators for hacking fishing ransomware um and you know it really takes a toll not only on the individual but also as a community as Society one bill would make the production or distribution of deep fakes a third-degree crime and would give victims of the deep fake the ability to take civil action against the perpetrator Cara Alo is an associate professor of communication at Fairley Dickinson University who thinks this bill will have impact I think it would act as a deterrent to uh potential people who are thinking about about creating this kind of content if they knew that they could be held criminally and then civil liable that bill also requires any manipulated video include a disclosure a disclosure was also included in another bill a 2818 that forbids distribution of any politically motivated deep fake about a candidate 90 days before an election it's really important to let our voters know that um you know if video or photo has been manipulated altered in any way we a voter have a right to know that that that's been the case and I don't think it takes much to say you know put a disclosure on there that this is not the actual you know image and that it's been altered right um and that's all it takes so I think we voters deserve the truth ala wants to see something similar at the federal level I think what we really need at a national level is legislation that requires that content that's created by AI be watermarked um and then also prohibits the removal of those watermarks and that would be really important because of course it would send a signal to people that what they were looking at is false another bill voted on today a 2364 allocates $2 million to create a unit under New Jersey's Department of Law and safety called The Deep fake technology unit the two Republicans on the committee abstained from the vote with assemblyman Robert off saying he does support the notion of the bill but 2 million and we really don't have a I guess detail build examination of how perpetrators are going to be located many of them are going to be outside of the country I mean once they detected they just move on to another I ipn and and they're off to the races again I mean it's just going to be a a constant hide and seek so to speak and somewhere along the line we need to know how they're going to be uh punished how they're going to be fined unfortunately I mean that's the state of how hacking and ransomware and all this that's happening um with with the internet and computers now so it's not just you know the Deep fakes but it's every aspect of the internet that keeps changing and moving the legislators agreed to keep working on the how aspects of the bills even as each of them cleared Committee in Trenton I'm Joanna gagas NJ Spotlight news [Music]