Education
Adult AI: porn may soon feature people that are not there
Professional headshot of a neutral, acting man with his face carefully balanced in the form of a neutral expression. A woman with red hair and glasses pouting in front of the camera. These images are the kind you can find on a Facebook profile or LinkedIn page to saturate our online world. The only change? There are no such people. They are the product of an algorithm, an image network competing with each other to make plausible counterfeits – and experts assume that in the near future they will substitute images of real people in all profiles, ranging from dating apps to porn-based bodies.
This person-friendly Notexist.com uses a code called StyleGAN, designed by the former Uber engineer Phil Wang. To build an almost endless stream of images, Wang used this code.
"What the site really demonstrates is that even for the distribution of data that you are so well prepare to understand as human beings, the machine can take out all the relevant features and compose them in a way that's so consistent" "Whenever you think about them really, it's a product of evolving for successful pairing."
Wang 's innovation is fascinating and apparently harmless and yet shares the same technological basis as many sinister works. In the past few years, GANs have been used almost endemically to create malicious content, for example material that maps celebrities' faces with existing footage, often called deepfakes.
"The recent study reveals that 96 percent of all deep-seated videos are pornographic and in many cases harass and terrorize women," says Rachel Thomas, a fast.ai and applied data ethics specialist. "Our legal system is generally slow to catch up and the use of AI deepens and accelerates this issue."
With this technology, which is already inextricably linked with sex, some predict that the adult industry will follow even more spurious videos that utilize the same fake technology.
An growing number of researchers are also raising concerns about the possible uses and abusses of GAN's. An AI that can produce entire corporations automatically in motion was developed in April 2019 by the Japanese AI company.
Although they envisaged this usage for advertising purposes it is not very comprehensive to understand how this new algorithm could be implemented in a similar manner because of the already excessive use of GANs to pornographic purposes.
The cost of making such footage means that full-body deepfakes with real faces or otherwise may soon replace videos from actual adult performers on a large scale, but the possible implications of this technology are still being understood by industry insiders.
"Many of the characteristics of our experiences have been created by CGI and are like what we are doing," says Ela Darling, an adult performer and founding member of Viro Club, a platform that combines adult avatars toys, (generally produced using real models), to create a hyper-realistic pornographical experience.
"Some people worry that we do not even need performers any longer, because you can build AI humanoids, and I think that might hurt performers in the industry."
From the point of view of a producer, the full-body pornography produced by AI is very beneficial. In an era in which free video breaks down a previously profitable industry they offer the possibility to try out more interactive and innovative content. On the other hand, it facilitates the creation of extreme content which consumers are looking for, but some performers are unwilling to participate. But, like with many new techniques, there are still several ethical considerations concerning the possibility of sexual content with people who have never existed.
The idea of introducing life-like images of people who can become bent upon the viewer or producer's will is rather alarming as the debate intensifies on how adult content can distort our perception of consensus and fun sex by showing scenes that objective women and problem sexuality feature. If we allow artificial understanding into the equation, we can open our screens to more and more extreme content, and perhaps make real-life performers think they have to compete with their cyber partners.
"The entire depth of the situation is a highly troubling concept as it is mainly women whose website has strict guidance on how to ensure that non-consensual, profound technology isn't used in any of their videos," says Ela Darling. It is a very disturbing concept. "We focus on the impact of the victim and don't take the deeper power structure to create these experiences into account. As we move towards future and emerging technologies, we have to ensure that actors are stakeholders in the final analysis.
The situation seems nuanced and there seems to be no clear response to the ethics or desire for AI pornography, or to how much closer we are to the technology that Wang presents on his website. But Wang remains positive himself:
"I certainly have concerns, but I also think that the majority should be informed about this technology rather than only a few experts and bad players," he says. "My site 's goal is small. I want to share with and appreciate the world immediately, with just a few refreshments.
