Spooked by AI, Bollywood stars drag Google into fight for ‘personality rights’

In India, Bollywood stars are asking judges to protect their voice and persona in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). One famous couple's biggest target is Google's video arm YouTube.

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Abhishek Bachchan and his wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, known for her iconic Cannes Film Festival red carpet appearances, have asked a judge to remove and prohibit creation of AI videos infringing their intellectual property rights. But in a more far-reaching request, they also want Google ordered to have safeguards to ensure such YouTube videos uploaded anyway do not train other AI platforms, legal papers reviewed by Reuters show.

A handful of Bollywood celebrities have begun asserting their “personality rights” in Indian courts over the last few years, as the country has no explicit protection for those like in many US states. But the Bachchans’ lawsuits are the most high-profile to date about the interplay of personality rights and the risk that misleading or deepfake YouTube videos could train other AI models.