AI on the Lot, the tech conference focused entirely on AI and filmmaking, took place at Amazon MGM Studios in Culver City last week. I was there for part of the sold‑out event among nearly 2,500 people, who were all milling about from soundstages to theaters to get educated on everything artificial intelligence can do for Hollywood.
Human creativity, intent, identity and impact were not front and center in the panel conversations I attended. I made it a point to make these topics a focal point of my sidebar chats with various AI representatives. The most eye‑opening of these interviews was with Luke Arrigoni, CEO of Loti AI – a company that scours the internet for deepfakes of people (celebrities and otherwise) and takes them down.
Do you want to protect your likeness online? Luke is the guy to call.
A deepfake is basically a digital forgery of someone’s likeness, whether it’s the use of their face, voice or the whole package, to make content, like pictures, videos and audio recordings.
The Screen Actors Guild‑American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the performers’ union of which I’m a member, went on strike in 2024. The threat of generative AI using a performer’s likeness without consent or compensation was – and still is, if I’m being honest – an existential concern.
Deepfakes don’t just affect performers and celebrities, though. AI tools on social media are fertile ground for such, whether it’s for spreading misinformation on TikTok or for the nonconsensual nudifying of images of people, as happened earlier this year with Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool.
Arrigoni (who was featured in Forbes’s Next 1000 list in 2021) met me outside the Culver Theater. Sporting a crisp blazer and casual button‑down, he had a welcoming yet no‑nonsense demeanor that made me hopeful our conversation would disrupt the monotony of the event’s AI worship. It did.
We ducked away from the conference hustle and bustle to talk about everything from the boilerplate details of his company to the fear surrounding AI and the guardrails needed to keep it from destroying humanity – his words, not mine. During a convention filled with techno‑optimism about a technology many fear and refuse to understand, Arrigoni cut through the noise to get to what really matters.
The following interview was edited for length and clarity.
What does your company specifically do?
Arrigoni: We do two big things. The first is defense: we crawl the entire web, feed the data into our system, use facial and voice recognition to locate unauthorized copies of you, and then we remove them. Think of it as search, find and destroy. It covers illegal deepfakes, explicit material, scams, people photoshopping logos onto shirts – that sort of stuff. We’re excellent at spotting them, and even better at taking them down.
The second is offense. If a generative‑AI firm wants to create an image of you, there are rules and pricing you can control as the rights holder. They send the request to us and, in real time, we either give the green light – «Sure, you can generate that» – or we block them – «Don’t waste resources, we’ll delete anything you produce.»
So the product isn’t strictly AI‑specific; it’s more of a safeguard that’s becoming essential in this era to protect people.
Arrigoni: It’s fighting fire with fire. We employ facial‑recognition and AI models to evaluate content and decide whether it should be removed or approved. In reality, we’re a human‑centric tool. You mentioned guardrails; we’re the rail system that lets creators be generated safely and lets generative‑AI platforms stay compliant while tapping a larger market.
Hypothetical: I’m an actor and find a video online that claims to be me but isn’t. Do I need a subpoena to get your company involved?
Arrigoni: No. Sign up, and within ten minutes we’ll start scanning the internet for you.
What sparked the creation of Loti AI?
Arrigoni: We began by taking down revenge‑porn content – the horrible term for non‑consensual intimate images, which most people know by another name. After that, the SAG‑AFTRA strike happened. I’d worked at CAA, so I reached out to them, WME and other talent agencies and said, «Would your clients want a service that can systematically scrub the internet and remove these violations?» Everyone said, «That’s a no‑brainer. Let’s do it.»
At the end of the day, do you feel hopeful or fearful about AI’s future?
Arrigoni: I think we’ll see a flood of AI‑generated content – it’s already happening. Audiences will tire of the average, leaving space for genuine creators, journalists and artists who can produce work AI can’t replicate. I don’t believe AI will ever out‑perform humans at top‑tier creation because it relies on massive data to predict the average, and most of that data sits between the 50th and 75th percentile. The system aims for just‑above‑average output and has no mechanism to reach the 99th percentile.
Explain it to a five‑year‑old.
Arrigoni: Sure. Think of the movies you love – a Christopher Nolan thriller or a Jordan Peele horror. Those unique, weird styles won’t be replaced by AI anytime soon. But for everyday, run‑of‑the‑mill content, AI will be a real competitor.
Will deepfakes become indistinguishable from reality?
Arrigoni: Probably within the next year or two it’ll be nearly impossible to tell what’s fake.
What does that mean for how the public interacts with media?
Arrigoni: It’s an education issue that will take at least a generation to solve. We need to lower the mental cost of critical thinking so the average person isn’t exhausted trying to spot fakes – and that education has to start in kindergarten.
This circles back to the hope question; it feels bleak and dystopian.
Arrigoni: I’m optimistic about what I can do, even if I’m not thrilled about the current landscape. When a big problem appears, I try to bend the tools I have to fix it. I feel a healthy amount of fear, but I’m also excited about the impact I could make.
Arrigoni: Tech loves to optimize until it strips away humanity, caution or guardrails. Recommendation algorithms are extreme examples of that. At Loti we make sure we don’t take the final step, even though the market pushes for it. I have investors aligned with that view, but more people need to say, «I know we can take the next step, but we shouldn’t.» Otherwise profitability will come at the cost of humanity.
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Yes, it sounds extreme, but AI is already being misused – ChatGPT as a medical advisor, cheating tools for students, etc.
Arrigoni: I have a 15‑year‑old and I made it easy for him: I told him he could cheat, but that it won’t help him in the long run. Real effort now makes life easier later – better jobs, better conversations, better relationships. Parents need to be the original guardrails, just like raising a child not to be miserable.
Finally, the singularity – will AI be the spark that pushes technology beyond humanity?
Arrigoni: If it happens with today’s tech, it’ll be terrible. It would be like the most average person you’ve ever met suddenly showing up everywhere. And that would suck.