9 ms·

If someone released a chatGPT/characterAI with NSFW content enabled it would eat into a big share of their users (and for characterAI, maybe take all of them).

• mvdwoord 4y ago
  "the VHS of AI"
• xena 4y ago
  The main reason why companies don't allow NSFW content is because of puritan payment processors that see that stuff and then go absolute sicko mode and lock people out of the traditional finance system.
  • gear54rus 4y ago
    This comment right here can be shown to snobs who still denounce crypto btw
    • mschild 4y ago
      This is not an argument for crypto, it's an argument for better regulations so that processors don't make up their own rules.
      • gear54rus 4y ago
        Well you can wait a lifetime or you can take control away from them with a couple clicks. The choice is obvious.
        • JohnFen 4y ago
          As a rule of thumb, whenever anyone says "the choice is obvious", the choice they're talking about is usually far from obvious.
      • robertlagrant 4y ago
        > This is not an argument for crypto, it's an argument for better regulations so that processors don't make up their own rules. Better (which I assume is your euphemism for "more") regulation isn't neceesarily the answer, or even particularly the answer. Do you want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do? Isn't there a word for that?
        • mschild 4y ago
          Not necessarily more. Better in this context means clearer and enforced. PayPal is the prime example where it's operating very similar to a bank. You have an account with a balance and can send and receive money, but it doesn't see itself as a bank and in many countries doesn't have a bank license. At least in part this is done to avoid the regulatory work that comes with it. I absolutely want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do. For example, banks in Germany are forced to provide you with a basic bank account regardless whether they want to or not. That's because a bank account is simply a must have to take part in modern life. If PayPal decides it doesn't want to do business with you, for whatever arbitrary reason, you are effectively locked out of a lot of online stores that only accept PayPal as a payment method. There is plenty of examples of PayPals really sketchy behaviour online. Every few months you can even see complaints on HN about it.
          • robertlagrant 4y ago
            > it's operating very similar to a bank We might be talking at cross purposes; I'm not sure! How is it like a bank?
            • mschild 4y ago
              PayPal offers you a virtual account that you can pay money into. You can use that money to make purchases online, send and receive money from friends or other businesses. In effect, it acts like a bank account. However, it's not an actual bank account. In Europe, any money you put into that account is also not ensured by the government, like a normal account would. If I pay with a credit card, there are processes in place to deal with fraud and charge backs. PayPal is well known to automatically close accounts with little recourse to access the money on those accounts. They should absolutely be regulated.
    • sharemywin 4y ago
      crypto + NSFW generative AI = ???? that's not going to lead to a whole lot of black market images.
      • xp84 4y ago
        It certainly stretches the bounds of reason for me that you could put a person in an isolation chamber with a powerful computer with no network connection, and after they type a few words into it, if the output of the computer has certain qualities, they are now a felon and the output is illegal to possess. But this seems like the world the “AI-regulators” seem to want.
        • sharemywin 4y ago
          you don't think it would be problematic for someone to create deep fake images of some ones kids in explicit sexual positions? I certainly think if the parents found out about it and the law wouldn't do anything about it the parents would take the law into their own hands. I'm sorry if this wasn't phrased very well. I just didn't know how else to make my point with out be very specific.
          • xp84 4y ago
            A skilled artist can already easily do that and there's no law against it that I know of. (Granted, I haven't researched it because I'm neither an artist nor a pervert...) Now, if they were drawn to resemble specific people and the producer of the "artwork" used them to harass those people, that's harassment. If they used them to groom other kids, that's an existing crime too. But my point was that the production of gross art in isolation, or the possession of it, didn't need to be criminalized. (Actual photographs of the same were criminalized because of the pretty decent assumption that minors were coerced, harmed, exploited. Probably all of the above.)
          • alexb_ 4y ago
            That's already illegal - you're using someone's image and likeness in a way they did not approve of.
    • xena 4y ago
      Taking all payment in Ethereum doesn't matter when you have to pay for servers and domain names in fiat.
      • gear54rus 4y ago
        Lots of work on that front no doubt, and not only wrt domains
      • Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
        Servers and domains are one of the easiest things to buy with crypto. I actually just migrated away from Hetzner last week (for unrelated reasons) to two new providers to whom I'm paying crypto (no KYC required) based on this list: https://bitcoin-vps.com/ https://bitcoin-vps.com/
        • sharemywin 4y ago
          would be nice if you could pay in your own token.
          • Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
            I'm not sure to what you're referring by "your own token", but most do offer a range of popular tokens by using one of the 3rd party payment providers like Coingate. I had paid for my servers with some Litecoin I have that I usually use for small purchases because of the low fees.
            • sharemywin 4y ago
              kind of like a free tier for token projects. if it gets traction you would need more servers but the token would have value so there you go.
  • boeingUH60 4y ago
    It's because NSFW content has higher risks of chargeback and fraud (there's a reason their payment processors charge 20%+). Besides, companies don't want to be on the bad side of outrage; it only takes one mistake of processing a payment for child pornography and your name will be plastered everywhere as a child porn enabler. Do you really think the execs at Visa and Mastercard are puritans and not profiteering capitalists that will process payments for NSFW content if they were able to?
    • nickpp 4y ago
      The whole US society seems more puritan while more capitalist at the same time, seen from this side of the pond. It’s a paradox I can’t really explain, any clues?
      • LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic Besides that: 'There is no such thing as society!'
      • dpflan 4y ago
        Perhaps it’s as easy as “ethics and laws are not the same thing”. One can profit either way, but unethical profiteering may not be prevented by a law.
      • robertlagrant 4y ago
        You're conflating capitalism and greed. Plenty of greedy people in non-capitalist systems.
        • nickpp 4y ago
          > Plenty of greedy people in non-capitalist systems. Totally agreed. But I am not placing any moral value on either greed or capitalism. I would think, however, that capitalists would not ignore such an obvious profit center as the sex industry. Thus my bafflement.
  • dpkirchner 4y ago
    I think it's equally likely that they just don't want their product to be known as "the porn bot".
    • speed_spread 4y ago
      Why not? As long as it's not official. Bing was/is known as "the porn search engine" which never seemed to bother Microsoft.
      • dpkirchner 4y ago
        I think the difference is that OpenAI wants to sell their text generation services to big companies that will show AI content directly on their platforms (think chat support bots), whereas Bing is selling eyeballs to advertisers (who also don't want their ads shown alongside porn by the by). If OpenAI has the reputation of serving up porn to whoever asks, there's no way the Walmarts of the world will sign up.
  • cubefox 4y ago
    It is amazing that in the year 2023, where things are possible that were science fiction until recently, we still rely on private payment processors, credit card companies, which extract fees for a service that doesn't have any technical necessity anymore. I think the reason is just inertia. They work well enough in most cases, and the fees aren't so high as to be painful, so there is little pressure to switch to something more modern.
    • andsoitis 4y ago
      > switch to something more modern such as?
      • cubefox 4y ago
        I would be very surprised if something based on Blockchain or similar software doesn't offer a solution here. Another route would be to establish a protocol for near instantaneous bank transfers, and try to get a lot of banks on board. The immediacy of transfers seems to be the main reason why companies use credit card services, not buyer protection or actual credit.
        • Gasp0de 4y ago
          PayPal?
          • cubefox 4y ago
            No PayPal is basically a credit card company. It is an intermediary which gives short credits in order to achieve near instantaneous payments. And extracts fees along the way.
        • xpe 4y ago
          I have no particular love of legacy systems (whether they be banks, imperialism, or Electoral Colleges), but what about your comment is plausible given the widespread recognition that blockchain technologies have been oversold, leading to widespread fraud and failure? Maybe I’m missing something, but the above comment reminds me of the blockchain naïveté of 10 years ago. I don’t mean to be dismissive; I’m suspending disbelief long enough to ask what you mean in detail.
  • bobbyi 4y ago
    It's also because the companies are backed by VCs. VCs get their money from limited partners like pension funds who don't want their money invested in porn.
  • addisonl 4y ago
    I don’t buy this, if this was the reason then paid porn couldn’t exist, and we know that’s not the case.
• nl 4y ago
  It's trivial to fine tune llamma to be NSFW if that's what you want. But there's an entire universe of much more interesting apps that people don't want NSFW stuff in. That's why most foundation models filter it out.
  • alexb_ 4y ago
    Anything involving llamma is not trivial - if I can't do it on my phone through a website, then you shouldn't expect anyone else to be able to do it. If your instructions involve downloading something, or even so much as touching the command line, it makes it a non-starter for 95% of users. Get something on the level of character.ai and then you can tell me it's "trivial".
    • nl 4y ago
      The context of this thread is a company spending $4B with a 4 year plan to build foundation models. One could do what I suggested in between days and months of work for a single person, including building a user-friendly front end. In the context of this thread it is trivial.
  • sharemywin 4y ago
    the point is though the market potential is huge. and it would be a way to grow fast with cash flow. as a side effect you would probably develop the best NSFW filter in the world also.
    • pixl97 4y ago
      > way to grow fast with cash flow. Until the US payment processors cut you off, then you go bankrupt.
  • cubefox 4y ago
    I don't think that's the reason. You wouldn't get anything "NSFW" if you don't ask/prompt for it.
• blazespin 4y ago
  I think there are FTC laws around this maybe.
• comboy 4y ago
  What's with the NSFW need? I'd understand if this is some image generator, but here? Is it some sexting, "romance", or is NSFW about something else altogether?
  • ttul 4y ago
    Anything that drives the dopamine cycle is of interest to humans. Sex in all its forms is pretty motivating.
  • GalahiSimtam 4y ago
    Per description of a certain item in Fallout 2, "if you need to ask, you don't want to know". UPDATE: while fanfiction might be behind this vocal minority, there could be other uses of LLMs, for example translation I don't go as far as "gender-swapping", because GPT4 swaps a man on a beach wearing only beach shorts for a woman wearing only beach shorts
  • cubefox 4y ago
    ChatGPT refuses to write erotic fan fiction. Related: I still remember when I used GPT-3 (davinci in the OpenAI playground) for the first time a few years ago. The examples were absolutely mind blowing, and I wanted it to generate something which would surprise me. So I tried a prompt which went something like > Mike peeked around the corner. He couldn't believe his eyes. GPT-3 continued with something like > In the dimly lit room, Vanessa sat on the bed. She wore nothing but a sheer nightgown. She looked at him and Etc. I think I laughed out loud at the time, because I probably expected ghosts or aliens more than a steamy story, though of course in retrospect it makes total sense. I wanted it to produce something surprising, and it delivered.
  • RobertDeNiro 4y ago
    Fanfiction. It is a huge deal to some people. Many prefer reading stories over watching porn, and we all know how big of a market pornography is.
    • cubefox 4y ago
      I wonder whether this actually an area where many women would push for, who have usually a much weaker interest in (visual) pornography.
• xp84 4y ago
  You’re not wrong, but the consumer market for chatbots is (perceived to be) tiny and I think nobody really cares about it. the real money places like openAI are chasing is business money.
• world2vec 4y ago
  If you check /g/ on 4chan (NSFW!!!) you'll see multiple threads on LLMs and LLM-driven chatbots for such content. Already quite advanced topic these days, all kinds of servers, locally run models, tips & tricks discussions, people sharing their prompts and "recipes", and so on. It's a whole new world out there but I am not sure if such niche (albeit a potentially really big one, see pr0n sites for example) is worth all the liability issues these big AI companies might face (puritan/queasy payment processors, parental controls, NSFW content potentially blocking some enterprise access, etc, etc). But it will probably all be captured by one or two companies that will specialize in such "sexy" chatbots. Doubt it will be OpenAI and Anthropic, they have their sights on "world domination".
• flangola7 4y ago
  At least for AI image generators it is a giant liability. As of two years ago AI-generated CSAM that is indistinguishable from original photographic CSAM is considered equally criminal. If users can spawn severely illegal content at will using your product you will find yourself in a boiling cauldron 30 seconds after going live. Stable diffusion no longer uses even adult NSFW material for the training dataset because the model is too good at extrapolating. There are very few pictures of iguanas wearing army uniforms, but it has seen lots of iguanas and lots of uniforms and is able to skillfully combine them. Unfortunately the same is true for NSFW pictures of adults and SFW pictures of children.
  • cubefox 4y ago
    I realize this is a highly taboo topic, but I think there are studies which suggest that access to (traditional) pornography reduces frequency of rape. So maybe Stable Diffusion could actually reduce the rate of abuse? (Disclaimer: I know nothing about the empirical research here, I just say the right answer isn't obvious.) Edit: It seems also that language models are a very different topics, since they block any erotic writing outright.
  • neuronexmachina 4y ago
    Yep. No sane company wants to deal with the legal and PR nightmare of their product being used to generate realistic CSAM based on a child star and/or photos taken in public of some random person's kid.
• neuronexmachina 4y ago
  I don't see how a competent legal team would ever sign-off on that.
• freediver 4y ago
  With so much NSWF on the web, how is NSFW chat with a computer even a thing? Genuinly curious what drives usage there.
• atleastoptimal 4y ago
  Someday it will have to happen. There is just too much demand.