 |
|
|
|||||
Last month, First Lady Melania Trump used her first public remarks of President Trumps second term to voice her support for the Take It Down Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at curbing deepfake revenge porn. She was joined by Elliston Berry, a Texas teenager who was a victim of deepfake porn. The widespread presence of abusive behavior in the digital domain affects the daily lives of our children, families, and communities, Mrs. Trump said. Every young person deserves a safe online space to express themself freely, without the looming threat of exploitation or harm. The Take It Down Act unanimously passed the Senate and is now headed for the House. Across the political spectrum, lawmakers generally agree that deepfake porn, in which generative AI renders a sexually explicit likeness of a real person, must be regulated. The public is on board as well. When pornographic deepfakes of Taylor Swift were circulated online, her fans were outraged and social media platforms raced to restrict these images. But the conversation has been framed too narrowly as a problem of exploitation and consent. It is also an existential labor problem: AI-generated porn could put thousands of Americans out of work. Like it or not, porn is big business. The industry currently operates as a hybrid market. Porn studios hire performers as private contractors, paying them a flat rate per shoot to own the recorded scene and freely disseminate it online. Performers can also create their own porn for OnlyFans, a social media platform primarily for explicit content where users pay for subscriptions to content creators accounts. Pornhub, the largest porn sitereceiving 5.25 billion visits each monthhosts around 20,000 verified performers. On OnlyFans, the numbers are even more staggering. In 2023, OnlyFans received $6.6 billion in payments, generating $1.3 billion in revenue. The company has over four million content creators, an estimated two million of whom are Americanabout twice the number of Uber drivers in the US. AI throws the porn industry, along with the rest of us, into new legal territory. For promotional purposes, porn studios have long included clauses in performers contracts giving them rights over not only the film itself but also derivatives of all images created during the shoot. These clauses could now grant studios sweeping ownership of performers likeness that they could use to make deepfakes porn scenes without providing additional pay to performers. But performers face an even broader threat, one that jeopardizes the studio and OnlyFans markets alike: In the not-too-distant future, companies will likely be able to make porn scenes generated by AI that are difficult to distinguish from scenes involving real performers and are cheaper to produce than hiring them. Even if consumers know that the person they are watching is not real, they may not care. Porn performers will not merely have to worry about having their particular likeness stolen for deepfake porn, because their profession as a whole could be largely replaced by AI. Los Angeles economy, already ravaged by wildfires, would be particularly hard-hit. The San Fernando Valley remains the epicenter of the global porn industry, supporting not only tens of thousands of porn performers and adult content creators, but also other porn industry members, from makeup artists to grips. Los Angeles is a company town, and porn workers are its employees. One might argue that the porn industry should simply be allowed to collapse. Indeed, this is the tact that has often been taken with sin industries through restrictions on banking, for example. The porn industry has a way to go when it comes to empowering performers, but further cutting into their pay is not the solution. Porn performers are workers, and AI-generated porn poses a threat to their work. Instead, the porn industry should be recognized as part of the entertainment ecosystemthe rebellious stepsister, shall we say, of the mainstream film industryand shares with it a common foe in AI. SAG-AFTRA, the labor union representing about 160,000 media professionals globally, has made the fight against AI a top priority. The union won important protections for its members in the historic 2023 strike, including consent procedures regarding deepfakes in contracts, minimum pay scales for using deepfakes, and limitations on employing generative AI for screenwriting. In the ongoing video game strike, deepfakes remain the sticking point. Unfortunately, none of these negotiations will directly help porn performers. Although SAG-AFTRA represents a wide range of media professionalsincluding mainstream actors, screenwriters, broadcast journalists, news writers, DJs, recording artists, stunt performers, puppeteers, and other media professionalsporn performers have never been eligible for membership. The porn industry also struggles to organize from within due to fragmentation and notoriously high turnover. While the Free Speech Coalition serves as the industrys trade association, the industry has no labor union. SAG-AFTRA should add porn performers to its ranks, devoting a branch to their specific needs. The entertainment ecosystem would be strengthened if media professionals recognize that, when it comes to AI, their fate is intertwined with that of porn performers. Indeed, when it comes to fair compensation and the protection of human labor, all of our jobs may depend on it.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a series of executive orders aimed at boosting the struggling coal industry, a reliable but polluting energy source that’s long been in decline.Under the four orders, Trump uses his emergency authority to allow some older coal-fired power plants set for retirement to keep producing electricity to meet rising U.S. power demand amid growth in data centers, artificial intelligence, and electric cars.Trump also directed federal agencies to identify coal resources on federal lands, lift barriers to coal mining, and prioritize coal leasing on U.S. lands.In a related action, Trump also signed a proclamation offering coal-fired power plants a two-year exemption from federal requirements to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals such as mercury, arsenic, and benzene.Trump’s administration had offered power plants and other industrial polluters a chance for exemptions from rules imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA, under Trump appointee Lee Zeldin, set up an electronic mailbox to allow regulated companies to request a presidential exemption under the Clean Air Act to a host of Biden-era rules.Trump, a Republican, has long promised to boost what he calls “beautiful” coal to fire power plants and for other uses, but the industry has been in decline for decades.“I call it beautiful, clean coal. I told my people, never use the word coal unless you put beautiful, clean before it,” Trump said at a White House signing ceremony where he was flanked by coal miners in hard hats. Several wore patches on their work jackets that said “coal.”“Pound for pound, coal is the single most reliable, durable, secure, and powerful form of energy,” Trump said. “It’s cheap, incredibly efficient, high density, and it’s almost indestructible.”Trump’s orders also direct Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands and require federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the nation away from coal production. And they seek to promote coal and coal technology exports, and accelerate development of coal technologies.Trump also targeted what he called “overreach” by Democratic-controlled states to limit energy production to slow climate change. He ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to take “all appropriate action to stop the enforcement” of such laws.New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, cochairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, said Trump’s order illegally attempts to usurp states’ rights to act on climate.“The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority. We are a nation of statesand lawsand we will not be deterred,” the two Democrats said. “We will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis that safeguard Americans’ fundamental right to clean air and water (and) grow the clean energy economy.”The climate alliance is a bipartisan coalition of 24 governors representing nearly 55% of the U.S. population. Trump has long championed coal Trump, who has pushed for U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market, has long suggested that coal can help meet surging electricity demand from manufacturing and the massive data centers needed for artificial intelligence.“We’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all,” he said Tuesday. “All those plants that have been closed are going to be opened, if they’re modern enough, (or) they’ll be ripped down and brand new ones will be built. And we’re going to put the miners back to work.”In 2018, during his first term, Trump directed then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take “immediate steps” to bolster struggling coal-fired and nuclear power plants, calling it a matter of national and economic security.At that time, Trump also considered but didn’t approve a plan to order grid operators to buy electricity from coal and nuclear plants to keep them open. Energy industry groupsincluding oil, natural gas, solar, and wind powercondemned the proposal, saying it would raise energy prices and distort markets. The national decline of coal Energy experts say any bump for coal under Trump is likely to be temporary because natural gas is cheaper, and there’s a durable market for renewable energy such as wind and solar power no matter who holds the White House.Trump’s administration has targeted regulations under the Biden administration that could hasten closures of heavily polluting coal power plants and the mines that supply them.Coal once provided more than half of U.S. electricity production, but its share dropped to about 16% in 2023, down from about 45% as recently as 2010. Natural gas provides about 43% of U.S. electricity, with the remainder from nuclear energy and renewables such as wind, solar, and hydropower.The front line in what Republicans call the “war on coal” is in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, a sparsely populated section of the Great Plains with the nation’s largest coal mines. It’s also home to a massive power plant in Colstrip, Montana, that emits more toxic air pollutants such as lead and arsenic than any other U.S. facility of its kind, according to the EPA.EPA rules finalized last year could force the Colstrip Generating Station to shut down or spend an estimated $400 million to clean up its emissions within the next several years. Another Biden-era proposal, from the Interior Department, would end new leasing of taxpayer-owned coal reserves in the Powder River Basin. Changes and promises under Trump Trump vowed to reverse those actions and has named Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright to lead a new National Energy Dominance Council. The panel is tasked with driving up already record-setting domestic oil and gas production, as well as coal and other traditional energy sources.The council has been granted sweeping authority over federal agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation. It has a mandate to cut bureaucratic red tape, enhance private sector investments, and focus on innovation instead of “unnecessary regulation,” Trump said.Zeldin meanwhile, has announced a series of actions to roll back environmental regulations, including rules on pollution from coal-fired power plants. In all, Zeldin said he’s moving to roll back 31 environmental rules, including a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action against climate change. Coal industry applauds, but environmental groups warn of problems Industry groups praised Trump’s focus on coal.“Despite countless warnings from the nation’s grid operators and energy regulators that we are facing an electricity supply crisis, the last administration’s energy policies were built on hostility to fossil fuels, directly targeting coal,Ý said Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association.Trump’s executive actions “clearly prioritize how to responsibly keep the lights on, recognize the enormous strategic value of American-mined coal and embrace the economic opportunity that comes from American energy abundance,” Nolan said.But environmental groups said Trump’s actions were more of the same tactics he tried during his first term in an unsuccessful bid to revive coal.“What’s next, a mandate that Americans must commute by horse and buggy?” asked Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at the Natural Resources Defense Council.“Coal plants are old and dirty, uncompetitive and unreliable,” Kennedy said, accusing Trump and his administration of remaining “stuck in the past, trying to make utility customers pay more for yesterday’s energy.”Instead, she said, the U.S. should do all it can to build the power grid of the future, including tax credits and other support for renewable energy such as wind and solar power. Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report. Matthew Daly, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Chinese producers of plastic Christmas trees and other festive decorations say orders from U.S. clients, which are crucial for their business, should have started to come in by now. But because of surging import tariffs, they haven’t. U.S. President Donald Trump has raised tariffs on Chinese imports by 104% so far this year in an escalating trade war that threatens great pain for the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods. U.S. retailers are almost completely reliant on China for Christmas decorations, where they source 87% of such goodsworth roughly $4 billion. Chinese factories are also heavily dependent on the U.S. market, where they sell half of what they make. If Americans want new Christmas decorations this year, they will have to pay a lot more for themif they can find them on the shelves at all. “So far this year, none of my American customers have placed any orders,” said Qun Ying, who runs an artificial Christmas tree factory in the eastern city of Jinhua. “Of course it’s about the tariffs. By mid-April all the orders are normally finalized, but right now . . . it’s hard to know if any orders are coming. Maybe American customers won’t buy anything this year.” In Shaoxing, some 160 kilometres (100 miles) away from Jinhua, factory owner Liu Song was confident his business can cope by trying to sell more to Russia, Europe, and Southeast Asia, which together take 75% of his products already. “We are worried that U.S. orders will come down,” he said, while adding: “We will definitely win this trade war.” Jessica Guo, who also manages a Christmas tree factory in Jinhua, said she was just notified by an important U.S. customer that it is pausing a 3 million yuan ($408,191) order for which she had already spent 400,000 yuan on materials. She expects that order will soon be cancelled and worries about her business. “My peers and I rely on U.S. orders to survive,” Guo said. “This will inevitably affect a lot of people. No one can escape.” Economists say the trade war will shave 12 percentage points off Chinese economic growth this year, exacerbate industrial overcapacity issues, threaten jobs, and further fuel deflationary forces. As Chinese exporters sell less to the U.S., which last year bought goods worth more than $400 billion, they will have to compete ever more intensely on prices in other markets. This will hit their already-thin profit margins and force them to cut costs at home, economists say. Guo’s 10,800-square metre (116,250-square foot) factory employs 140 people regularly, but that number can hit 200 in peak production season over the summer. This year she does not expect to need extra workers. “Losing the U.S. market will definitely impact many peoples jobs,” said Guo. Domestic demand for Christmas decorations in China is insignificant, she added. SILENT NIGHTS Sourcing from countries other than China will be difficult. The second-biggest exporter of Christmas decorations to the U.S. is Cambodia, which makes 5.5% of the goods, and last week Trump imposed a 49% tariff on Cambodian imports. Shifting production to the U.S., one of Trump’s goals in imposing tariffs on China and almost every other country in the world, is not feasible, says Jami Warner, executive director of the American Christmas Tree Association. “They certainly can’t be made in the United States. There’s no manufacturing, the technology isn’t here, the labour market isn’t here,” said Warner. Warner, who expects significant, but hard to estimate, price increases, says 80% of all Christmas trees displayed in the U.S. are artificial. The pre-lit trees, which is most of them, are only made in China. She decries her industry becoming collateral damage in a geopolitical fight. “What our members make and sell are not strategic products,” said Warner. “We’re not threatening. We’re a happy, joyful business. We’d like to stay in that joyful business.” ($1 = 7.3499 Chinese yuan renminbi) (This story has been refiled to change additional reporting credit to Xiaoyu Yin from Xihao Jiang) Andrew Silver and Casey Hall, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||