Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are both facing legal complaints over artificial intelligence (AI)-generated voice controversy.
DPP Taipei city councilor candidate Chang Ming-yu (張銘祐) yesterday filed a criminal accusation against Chiang of commissioning the creation of a video that allegedly used AI voice cloning to impersonate President William Lai (賴清德).
The video was allegedly made by former KMT New Media Department director, who was contacted last week by police from the Criminal Investigation Bureau, and the video is now the subject of an investigation by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office.
Photo: CNA
Chang went to the prosecutors’ office with a lawyer to file charges against Chiang, accusing him of three offenses — document forgery, aggravated defamation and contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
Chang quoted Chiang as telling reporters that he had asked Wei’s team to create the video, and even challenged the central government to “come at me,” instead of Wei.
Now that Wei is being investigated, Chiang cannot stay out of the matter, Chang said, adding that prosecutors should look into whether their alleged use of AI to impersonate Lai’s voice was intended to mislead the public, and whether Chiang played the role of an instigator, an instructor or a co-principal offender.
Photo: Hung Jui-chin, Taipei Times
Lawyer Chan Chin-chien (詹晉鑒) said that Chiang’s commissioning of the video has misled the public and damaged Lai’s reputation, and the electromagnetic records generated by AI voice cloning might constitute “quasi-documents” under the Criminal Code.
Although Chiang on Wednesday last week said that the video was explicitly labeled as AI-generated, Chan said the disclaimer was not directly marked in the video, but only appeared at the very bottom of the YouTube description box, where viewers need to expand the section to see it.
He also questioned whether the warning might have been automatically added by the platform, rather than actively disclosed by the production team.
Chan said the intention behind producing the video was “an open secret known to all” — to damage Lai’s reputation — so they also filed a complaint for aggravated defamation.
Chiang, who is a public servant, might also be involved in unlawful collection, processing or use of personal data, by allegedly using Lai’s voice to produce the video, he added.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Yang Chih-tou (楊植斗) and city councilor candidate Chen Kuan-an (陳冠安) yesterday also went to the Taipei prosecutors’ office to file accusations against DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) and Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲), accusing them of public insult, defamation and contraventions of the Personal Data Protection Act.
At a news conference on Friday, Wang and Huang criticized the alleged AI voice cloning of Lai, and they played three AI-generated audio clips of Chiang’s voice as examples of how it can confuse the public.
Yang said Wei’s video presented no criminal concerns, and that they would not have taken action if someone had not filed a complaint against Chiang.
As prosecutors are only questioning Chiang, but not Wang or Huang, they decided to also file criminal complaints against them, he said.
If the generated image or voice of the president or a mayor does not involve false statements, character assassination, context splicing, sex offenses or fraud, it should not constitute a crime, he said.
A democratic society should allow room for political satire or policy promotion, Yang said.
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