A group of New Hampshire Democrats have introduced a bill that is so blatantly unconstitutional that you’d think even they would know better. There is no chance of that. Oppressing speech feels right, especially if your bill allows you to accuse people of a crime without evidence of one.
They even added a special section prohibiting protected speech 90 days before an election (ala McCain Feingold).
HB1500 is an act relative to prohibiting the unlawful distribution of misleading synthetic media – where synthetic media is defined as “any form of media including text, image, video, or sound, fully or partially created or modified through the use of artificial intelligence algorithms.”
Without venturing down the “your side does this more than anyone rabbit hole,” what exactly were they thinking? You can’t require the consent of the object of your ridicule (for example), especially politicians, as we near an election. But that’s not the most dangerous feature of this smoldering crap wagon of words.
The proposed legislation fails to explain how the target or an advocate can tell if the text, image, video, or sound is (for lack of a better word) analog or AI. So, when looking at a bunch of text, a meme, or a parody video – all protected speech under the First Amendment – how does one discern if it was crafted by human hands or artificial intelligence?
Let me give you an example. Which one of these images was “fully or partially created or modified through the use of artificial intelligence algorithms.”
The answer is neither and, therefore, both because the bill has no mechanism for preventing snowflakes (or paid activists) from using the law HB1500 would create to engage in malicious acts of lawfare.
HB1500 is also an entrapment law. Anyone sharing a screengrab second-or-third-hand of something whose source document turns out to violate the law has no way of knowing in advance they might be breaking it, which again, demonstrates the idiocy of what it pretends to do – protect constituents these legislators consider too stupid to make decisions about online content for themselves.
That’s not the actual goal. HB1500 exists to suppress political speech with an emphasis on quelching dissent in the weeks leading up to an election when we need it most! But if we were to pretend otherwise, what right does NH have to tell citizens they need to acquire and use technology to ensure that any expression they engage in is not derived in violation of HB1500?
The correct, undiplomatic response to legislators ignoring any or all of these problems involves the phrase “you and the horse you rode in on.”
I don’t use AI, but as written, the easily offended could accuse me of violating this bill were it to become law without any evidence or concern for the need – which is an all-star attribute of laws under Democrat Socialism. Dragging innocent citizens into the so-called legal system on a lark, if you like, which – in my opinion – is the point. This bill suppresses the rights of innocent citizens while fattening the pockets of lawyers (not to mention cluttering up court schedules) for charges that cannot be corroborated and are – literally – protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the NH Constitution.
[Art.] 22. [Free Speech; Liberty of the Press.] Free speech and Liberty of the press are essential to the security of Freedom in a State: They ought, therefore, to be inviolably preserved.
I missed the public hearing and had not heard about the bill until after the fact, but one thing is clear. Democrats, especially the bill’s sponsors, are at war with the Constitution and free expression, and this is just another flanking maneuver and a poorly written one, at that.
If you agree, please get in touch with the Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety with some politely worded thoughts.
