Filmmaker Toni Tice-Durette raises creative consent and compliance cost concerns

Hi, thank you so much.

I have written remarks, but I'm going to read them out loud and I can send them later.

But thank you, Speaker Menon and members of the council.

My name is Toni Tysaret.

I'm a filmmaker, educator, and founder of Cinepartner, an AI-powered platform for storytellers.

Now, I'm probably coming to this conversation from a slightly different perspective because I build with AI, I teach people about AI, and I work with creative communities that are simultaneously excited about this technology

and very concerned about what it can mean for their livelihoods, their work, and their agency.

So we believe that we need guardrails, which is something we've been hearing all day, right?

But I also believe that the goal should be responsible innovation, not regulation that unintentionally makes it possible for only the largest companies to build an AI.

When we create compliance requirements, I would encourage the council to not only ask, will this make AI safer, but also who will be able to afford to comply?

Because if responsible AI development requires an expensive validation regime that only trillion-dollar technology companies can navigate,

we may inadvertently consolidate AI development in the very companies we're trying to hold accountable.

And for creative communities, safety isn't only just about whether a model can be shut down.

It's also about consent, authorship, provenance, compensation, and transparency.

So if someone's screenplay, for instance, or voice, likeness, or creative work contributes to an AI system or its output, what rights does that person retain?

Do they know how their work is being used?

Can they opt out?

Can they identify when AI materially contributed to something?

And there's one more thing I wanted to elaborate, is that I strongly support tracking displacement.

But I would encourage New York to stop at counting the jobs AI eliminates.

We should also be measuring whether New Yorkers are being prepared for the jobs that AI creates.

AI literacy.

The time has expired.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony.

And please be sure to send us the written copy so we can review it.

Thank you so much.

Where do I send it again?

I didn't hear that.

Testimony at council.ny.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, Travis Hall.

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