House Judiciary Committee
January 23, 2025
Representative Carol Dalby [00:00:02] Good morning. I call this meeting to order of House Judiciary. Chair sees a quorum. Welcome to our Thursday. I know I had announced earlier that we had two 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's 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 read this morning. So I will recognize Representative Scott Richardson and he will be running House Bill 1071. Representative Richardson, you're recognized go in the table and present your bill.
Representative Scott Richardson [00:01:09] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Committee. So good morning. I'm presenting just a real simple bill here. 1071. It's just a, if you will, language clean up or addition for changing times. We have, of course, been exposed very recently to the changes in technology associated with generative AI. And not to get off in the details, but generative AI has opened up a world of possibilities, including the ability to take an individual's likeness, their picture or another video, and then reproduce that individual doing something that they hadn't been doing in the past.
And I love an example. A person said to me, So you could take a picture of maybe a current Arkansas Razorback that is from them running through the hog 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 generative 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 video of that same Razorback promoting my particular products, maybe 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 existing law, which is the Frank Broyles Publicity Act from 2016, we can just add this additional protection into the existing law.
So that's what this bill attempts to do. If you look at the bill itself, we can look on line 30 on page one. We've added that additional artificial intelligence language to exempt using or changing an existing person's image and then promoting that in your particular advertisement or whatever. 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 leverage artificially generated voice. So very clean, very neat, should be fairly straightforward. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions that you might have.
Representative Carol Dalby [00:03:55] Members, are there any questions? Representative Hudson, you are recognized for a question.
Representative Ashley Hudson [00:04:02] Thank you, Madam Chair. And Representative Richardson, I'm asking this because I'm just not sure. Is artificial intelligence defined anywhere in the code?
Representative Scott Richardson [00:04:13] We did define a little bit in this associated with likeness, which is generally the likeness means a reproduction. But also we just stretch that to say using 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 that necessarily from a contextual perspective is necessary in this bill because we're associating with just changing through an artificial means.
Representative Ashley Hudson [00:04:52] Thank you.
Representative Scott Richardson [00:04:52] Thank you.
Representative Carol Dalby [00:04:54] Members, any other questions? Seeing no further questions, we have no one who 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 the bill, Representative Richardson, you're recognized to close for your bill.
Representative Scott Richardson [00:05:18] I am closed for my bill, Madam Chair, and I would make a motion do pass as-- I guess this isn't amended-- so do pass.
Representative Carol Dalby [00:05:26] Members, Representative Richardson is closed for this bill, has made a motion do pass. 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 ayes have it. Congratulations. You have passed your bill. Members with that, we have no other bills to hear this morning because of the members own.
I do have a couple of announcements that 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. The Chief Justice contacted me 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. Enjoy the fact that 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.
