Deepfake Pornography Reveals Yet Another Risk Posed by Artificial Intelligence

At the end of January, popular Twitch live-streamer Brandon Ewing — better known as Atrioc — was exposed in a now-deleted post online for allegedly patronizing a pornographic website that specialized in the production of “deepfakes” of online personalities, many of whom were his colleagues on Twitch and his personal friends.

Atrioc was accused of consuming pornography of his colleagues and friends that was generated through artificial intelligence (AI) technology without these individuals’ consent. In an apology stream, Atrioc admitted to the accusations and said he found the source of the deepfakes through advertisements on another porn website. He also admitted he was paying for videos in which AI was used to superimpose the likenesses of his friends and colleagues onto the bodies of pornographic actresses. . .

Twitch streamer Atrioc issued an apology after accidentally revealing that he watched deepfake videos of streamers Pokimane and Maya pic.twitter.com/oEjHnGS3Ax

— Dexerto (@Dexerto) January 30, 2023

The recent development of using AI technology to create pornography of individuals without their awareness or consent is an incredibly pernicious phenomenon. Some online refer to it as a form of “free speech” and suggest its existence isn’t doing harm since the people pictured in the videos are often public figures who are only having their likenesses nonconsensually grafted onto sexual content and are not forced to actually participate in nonconsensual activity.

In some ways, the advent of deepfake pornography is akin to “revenge porn.” But revenge porn, the nonconsensual leaking of sexual materials in order to humiliate and exact revenge upon someone while using prior consent and intimacy as the genesis of this content, largely involves humans exploiting their past interactions with other humans.

Deepfake pornography, on the other hand, is created entirely out of whole cloth through advanced pattern recognition software that is able to fabricate compromising situations in which these people were never participants. Obviously, revenge porn isn’t a morally superior alternative to this, but the fact that these materials can be created through self-automating software ought to be deeply concerning. (Read more from “Deepfake Pornography Reveals Yet Another Risk Posed by Artificial Intelligence” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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