The Power of Making Consent Visible

This week, RSL Media – a new non-profit co-founded by Cate Blanchett, announced they are building a public consent registry for AI use of name, image, and likeness. RSL Media co-founder Nikki Hexum said: 

“AI can’t respect rights it can’t see, and this means human consent is virtually invisible in this new digital era. The right to decide whether AI can use your work or identity should not be reserved for only those who can afford lawyers or have platforms big enough to be heard, it is a basic human right.”

We couldn’t agree more. RSL Media’s work makes consent visible, and we’re making the mechanism to see it. 

A consent registry creates the signal that consent exists or doesn’t – like a stoplight. At Sublimate, we’re creating the enforcement mechanism at the model level to receive and acknowledge that type of signal before model training starts. 

When your likeness is trained into a model you control, with documented chain-of-title and a feedback system that improves accuracy with every authorized use, your identity stops being something others can quietly extract. It becomes a compounding asset, on your terms, subject to your permissions, for as long as you choose. 

RSL Media is building the consent layer the industry needs. Sublimate is building the infrastructure that makes that consent enforceable throughout the lifecycle of an image model. This is one more signal that the era of assuming permission is ending, and we’re excited to be designing the tools for the era of consent that comes next.