Fake AI-Created Nudes Generate Safety Risks Mainly For Women
AI-generated fake nudes, pornography and other content using people’s images without consent, known as deepfakes, are a growing online hazard creating unique extortion risks especially for women. According to artificial intelligence company Sensity AI’s research highlighted in The Washington Post, 96% of deepfakes feature nonconsensual intimate imagery. Additionally, 99% of victims facing this AI-powered identity abuse are women.
As the realism of AI-synthesized media keeps improving with generative adversarial networks (GANs) and similar deep learning techniques, more fake nudes continue appearing online without people’s permission. Researcher Genevieve Oh found a over 290% increase since 2018 in deepfakes featured on the top 10 websites hosting this kind of voyeuristic content. Several leading actresses, politicians and even underage teenagers have faced image-based abuse via deepfakes.
While legal remedies exist for victims, policy changes regulating deepfakes combined with emerging digital authentication tools offer the most robust solutions to this AI-powered harassment. Beyond firm regulation though, reducing the huge gender imbalance in AI development teams could mitigate the lopsided impacts women face from nonconsensual synthetic media featuring their likeness.
Deepfakes Create Extortion Vulnerability
Using GAN algorithms, anyone’s photos or videos can realistically be used to generate intimate imagery without their consent. This content gets shared widely as different types of extortion take place. Victims face reputational damage, harassment, mental trauma along with privacy violations from deepfakes. The exponential rise in hyper-realistic fake AI nudes creates disproportionate risks for women especially.
96% Deepfakes Are Nonconsensual Porn
Per research by Sensity AI covered in The Washington Post, an overwhelming 96% of deepfake content features nonconsensually created intimate imagery of people. This indicates most deepfakes constitute image-based sexual abuse instead of parody or political commentary. And Generative AI models excel at quickly creating porn using people’s images.
99% Victims Are Women
Confirming deepfakes’ severely gendered impacts, Sensity’s analysis found 99% of victims being subjected to face-swapping or full bodyswapping into pornographic videos and images are women. This exponential surge in fake AI porn featuring women without consent leads to reputational damage, harassment and trauma along with privacy violations. The scale of risks women face from uncontrolled deepfakes growth is infinitely higher.
Sites Hosting Fake AI Nudes Up Over 290%
Industry analyst Genevieve Oh tracked the top 10 websites hosting deepfakes from 2018 to 2022. She found more than a 300% increase over four years in nonconsensual intimate imagery including fake AI nudes being featured on these platforms. Leading actresses and politicians have already faced abuse via realistic face-swapped porn videos, indicating an iceberg’s tip as this technological capability spreads silently.
Protecting Oneself From Deepfakes Risk
While solving deepfakes’ outsized impacts on women requires systematic changes by platforms, lawmakers and technology leaders, certain precautions can help reduce this AI-powered harassment. Beyond limiting online sharing, authentication tools are emerging alongside legal remedies for victims to control their digital identities better.
Techniques Used to Create Fake Images
Generative adversarial networks, StyleGAN models and photorealistic text-to-image generators create deepfakes via machine learning algorithms. They mix-and-match or generate pixel data to emulate real photos and videos using public images. Face-swapping apps easily build on these approaches by blending one person’s facial features into existing intimate imagery featuring someone else.
Harms Caused By Nonconsensual Deepfakes
As hyper-realistic fake content spreads unchecked, women face disproportionate threats from deepfakes including stalking, harassment, reputational damage, trauma due to unauthorized pornography featuring them and even loss of financial opportunities. Online abuse via AI-generated imagery also violates users’ privacy severely while enabling new forms of tech-powered violence against women.
Legal Remedies Available To Victims
In the US, deepfake victims can pursue legal charges like copyright infringement through DMCA takedown notices to remove unauthorized AI content featuring them from websites and platforms. Nonconsensual pornography laws also exist in some states offering civil recourse. Identity theft charges apply if financial fraud results using fake biometrics. Tort law also allows suing deepfake creators for reputational damage or emotional distress under negligence claims.
Digital Tools To Reduce Deepfakes Risks
Using authenticated Google Photos helps combat potential misuse via deepfakes. Adobe offers an AI attribution tool still in beta that detects GAN imagery. Truepic’s photo and video authentication service secures media capturing and sharing. As AI improves at generating hyper-realistic imagery, more tools leveraging blockchain, metadata tracking and digital watermarking are emerging to certify real versus fake visual content.
Policy And Technology Changes Required
Pressuring social networks and adult sites to stop hosting nonconsensually created fake porn is crucial. Lawmakers globally must implement firm policies specially protecting women from voyeuristic deepfakes that cause disproportionate abuse. Ethical guidelines for generative AI research broadly also reduce harms from uncontrolled technology advances. Finally achieving more gender balance in AI development teams would make systems fairer for female users.
Societal Impacts Of Hyper-Realistic AI Content
The growing ability of AI systems to generate fake yet incredibly photorealistic content raises troubling questions regarding privacy, consent, and online authenticity overall going forward. Through this decade, machine learning techniques will produce synthetic imagery and media that grows more indistinguishable from reality. Besides reducing systemic gender discrimination permeating AI currently, users worldwide will likely demand greater transparency and control over their identity from platforms, devices and generative models anchoring the algorithmic economy.
So while deepfakes create an urgent extortion risk primarily affecting women today through nonconsensual fake porn featuring their likeness, broader societal risks loom as AI content becomes fully customizable yet increasingly untraceable. Allowing users sovereign ownership over their data emerging from public or private interactions offers one solution. Adopting an affirmative consent mindset globally regarding not just physical relations but also digital representation could be pivotal. Ultimately over the next decade, lawmakers, technologists and platforms must prioritize policies and innovations curbing harm from synthetic media while empowering greater user control through technology.
— David Cavalcante
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