Judiciary Committee- House

Good morning. Call this meeting the order of House Judiciary Chair Caesar Quorum. uh, welcome to our Thursday. I know I had announced earlier that we had 2 bills that we were going to hear House Bill 1067 has a member's own amendment to it, so it's on another calendar and by House rules, we can't take that bill up today. That bill is going to be moved to next Thursday. So if anybody in the room is interested in house Bill 1067. We will be moving that to next Thursday, so just make that a note, members. With that, we have one bill to run this morning, so I recognize Representative Scott Richardson, and he will be running House Bill 1071 representing Richardson. You recognized go to the end of the table and present your bill. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, uh, committee. So good morning. Um, I'm presenting just a real simple bill here, 1071. It's just a, if you will, language cleanup or auditioning for changing times. Um, we have, of course, been exposed very recently to the changes in technology associated with generative AI and um Not to get off into the details, but generative AI has opened up a world of possibilities, including the ability to take an individual's likeness, they pitcher or another video, uh, and then reproduce that individual doing something that they hadn't been doing in the past, and I I I love an example a person said to me, so you could take a picture of maybe a current Arkansas Razorback. that uh is um from them running through the through the, the hog at the at the football field, get a nice image of that and you could turn around and put them on the side of a mountain, or you could put them running on top of water or whatever and through gene of AI we can produce that. But it's also exposed for us a number of challenges, and one of those is using that same likeness to promote one's own products. So if I wanted to produce a um a video of that same razorback promoting my particular products may be a new kind of coffee or a new kind of soda pop and then I would be able to do that and under current law, there's a lot of challenges with that. So by leveraging uh existing law, which is the Frank Burs Publicity Act, uh, from 2016. We can just add this additional protection into the existing law. So that's what this bill attempts to do. Um. Uh, if you look at the bill itself, you can look online, uh, 30 on page one, we've added that additional. Artificial intelligence, um. Language to exempt using or changing existing person's image and then promoting that in your particular advertisement or whatever, uh, on the second page we just did a little bit of reordering and then again added the artificial intelligence generation. And then also later on the bill down around line 13, we also leveraged artificially in generated voice. So very clean, very neat, should be fairly straightforward and uh with that, I'm happy to take any questions that you, you might have. Members, are there any questions? Representative Hudson, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Madam Chair, and, and Representative Richardson, I'm asking this because I'm, I'm just not sure. Is, is artificial intelligence defined anywhere in the code? We did define a little bit in this associated with likeness, which is, is generally the lightness means a a reproduction, but that also we just stretch that to say using um an artificial intelligence means by producing that. I'm not aware in this bill of defining or attempting to define artificial intelligence. And I don't think it necessarily from a contextual perspective is necessary in this bill because we're associating it with just Changing through an artificial means. Thank you. Thank you. Members, any other questions? Seeing no further questions, we have no one who's signed up to speak for or against the bill, since we're kind of at the first of the session, is there anyone out in the audience that wishes to speak for or against the bill, seeing no one who signed up and no one who wishes to speak for or against the bill, Representative Richardson, you're recognized to close for your bill. I am close for my bill, Madam Chair, and I would make a motion we do pass as I guess this isn't a minute, so I do pass. Members represented Richardson is closed for his bill has made a motion to depass. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing no discussion on the motion, all in favor of the motion, please say aye. Any opposed? Say no. The eyes have it. Congratulations, you have passed your bill. Members with that, we have no other bills to hear this morning because of the member's own. I do have a couple of announcements that um I want you to note on your calendar Tuesday, this coming Tuesday on January the 28th, we will have a special order which is House Bill 1204. For those of you who may not be familiar out in the audience, special order means that's the only bill that will be heard that day. So make that notation House Bill 1204 will be heard on Tuesday next Thursday. We will move House Bill 1067. To Thursday, which we were going to hear today. Everything else on our agenda. Has amendments pending, so we don't really have anything else to hear. Uh, the Chief Justice, uh, contacted me, uh, Tuesday afternoon and then she and I had an opportunity to visit yesterday the Chief Justice is planning on being here next Thursday on the 30th, so note that the Chief Justice will be in our committee on the 30th. I know of no other announcements. I appreciate your work for the last few days, um, enjoyed the fact We don't have much on our calendar right now because I hear we're getting ready to start moving a little bit more, so have a great weekend. Thank you so much for getting here early for our picture, and with that, we are adjourned.