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> It is inevitable that basically everyone in the next generation will have deepfake porn made of them by some asshat classmate. It is about as hard to stop as

> It is inevitable that basically everyone in the next generation will have deepfake porn made of them by some asshat classmate. It is about as hard to stop as someone creating an nude painting of someone from imagination. This is just casually dropped as though a photo-realistic AI image == an amateur painting, in production quality, in required effort and time, as though they're even remotely comparable. Which by the by, I also think the amateur painting should be punished as making nude pictures of people you don't get permission from is creepy. > It is not a nice thing to do, and really mean if shared in public, but the types of measures it would take to stop it are incompatible with a free society. I do not wish to live in a free society then. This is patently absurd. We also cannot stop people murdering each other, stealing from each other, or otherwise causing harm, but we damn well punish it when it happens (when our useless judiciary system can be bothered anyway but that's a different conversation) and that people are just like "well I guess kids now have to worry about classmates making photo realistic depictions of them performing sex acts" is so horrifying. So horrifying, on so many levels. Is this what we're building? Is this the society we all envisioned as kiddos getting into the Internet and our computers? I think we can do so very, very much better than this and it makes me incredibly depressed seeing what we're permitting to be done with the tools we make. Everyone involved in this should be ashamed. I don't know how I'd live with myself knowing I played even a small role in ushering in entire new vectors of sexual harassment directed at people who already struggle to get a modicum of justice in this world. And for what? "Freedom?" My right to swing my fist ends when it contacts your face, but up until then, you can't do a thing? You just get to have dozens if not hundreds of people swinging at you faking you out every minute of your life and you just have to sit there and take it, because they technically haven't hit you yet? Bollocks. Absolute nonsense. This society might be "free" but it cannot function and the longer we delay in gaining this understanding the more people will be driven out of their minds waiting for us to do so.

lrvick 3y ago
Stopping someone from physically harming someone else can come with severe -punishment- as a deterrent and is much more serious than sharing -any- type of data online. Stopping someone from making a digital parody of someone else gets closer to free speech territory and is a lot more complicated. You can make it illegal or try to detect and restrict sharing it in popular apps because it hurts feelings, just like you can outlaw pictures of religious imagery because they hurt feelings, but neither can ever be effectively enforced in an internet that allows open source applications and anonymity. See: piracy. Giving up the right to online anonymity is a non starter as it would make it impossible for journalists and dissidents to communicate freely which is a requirement for democracy to function.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  > Stopping someone from physically harming someone else can come with severe -punishment- as a deterrent and is much more serious than sharing -any- type of data online. Stopping someone from making a digital parody of someone else gets closer to free speech territory and is a lot more complicated. This statement is hilarious because we cannot even do the former for schoolchildren, let alone the latter. Between casual bullying resulting in fatalities due to the utter disinterest of the administration at play, to school shootings where police cower outside while someone murders children en masse. Apparently being a child now is just grounds to have people make pornography of you, bully you relentlessly, with the distinct possibility you might die in a hail of gunfire one day for literally no reason. No wonder the birth rate has cratered. > You can make it illegal or try to detect and restrict sharing it in popular apps because it hurts feelings CAN and SHOULD. INCREDIBLY illegal. Like registering the creator as a sex offender illegal, because that's what this is. It's a sex crime. > but neither can ever be effectively enforced in an internet that allows open source applications and anonymity. See: piracy. So we just give up?
  - lrvick 3y ago
    Unless you have any ideas for a solution, I suggest we focus on education to contextualize what kids will inevitably see online. Kids are going to see over 18 content be it deepfake or hardcore. Censorship approaches do not work.
    - palata 3y ago
      And teach engineers about ethics, too? I feel like it could help, because they are the one making the technology and often getting a ton of money for it.
      - lrvick 3y ago
        I do wish we taught engineering ethics, because I do not feel like the majority of silicon valley surveillance capitalism tech workers have any ethics beyond following antiquated legal requirements. That said, in a global internet any technology that can be created, will be crated, and made free and open for anyone to use. We can never escape this fact, and can only educate people on how to protect themselves as individuals as much as possible. Google, Facebook, and modern surveillance capitalism app culture is -optional-. Smartphones have turned into a net negative that make most people miserable for instance. I for one do not have a smartphone, and am happier for it.
RetroTechie 3y ago
(..) and that people are just like "well I guess kids now have to worry about classmates making photo realistic depictions of them performing sex acts" is so horrifying. You talk of punishment in the context of physical harm (fist vs. face), while deepfakes concern mental distress at worst. 2nd order effects like reputation damage, lost income etc can be adressed by lawyers. Yes mental distress can be severe to some people. Or (for example) cause a group of people to harass someone. But a) such harassment is a separate act from posting a deepfake. And b) If deepfake postings happen often enough, it kinda takes the sting out. Few people today would be deeply disturbed if someone posts their head shopped onto a pornstar's body. That's easy enough that anyone can do it, it's been done many times, so the newsworthiness / shock value is gone. If you know the victim in person, you'd probably be able to tell whether some video is fake or not. Or ask that person. If victim is a random stranger & deepfake disappears into the 'internet background noise', who cares. Either way, when creating a deepfake is easy enough, it simultaneously grants a victim plausible deniability. So ehm... "horrifying" is too strong a word imho. Try "annoying", "bad taste" or "disrespectful". Punishment (if any) should fit that.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  The blasé attitude of the people building this technology is what makes it horrifying. Literally the FIRST major objections I heard to generative AI/deepfakes was the strong possibility if not guarantee of how it would be utilized by bad actors, be they interpersonal or political in nature. And over and over the tech sphere has downplayed and ignored this reality in favor of the ephemeral "progress" which also happens, by sheer coincidence I'm sure, to be their paths to success both professionally and financially. And on this progress marched until we've reached a place where it is now feasible that a high schooler could take the likeness of a girl he likes, shove it into an image generator, and make porn out of her without her consent or knowledge and be totally free to distribute that however he sees fit. THAT is horrifying. It's horrifying both by the base actions at play and, far moreso IMO, that because someone in the tech space thought it was monetizable enough to warrant investment, it will happen. It did happen. That genie is now out if it's box and when confronted with the ethical dilemmas it seems most people in the engineering space are content to shrug their shoulders and go "shit happens." That's horrifying. It's horrifying that all a technology has to do is demonstrate it's ability to make money, no matter how socially or culturally corrosive it might be, no matter how much harm it might do to individuals or even entire professions, no matter how unethical and just straight up creepy it is, doesn't matter. If it will make someone rich, it will be done, and it will be done with the best hardware and expertise money can buy, and that social order will be corroded, that culture will be corroded, those individuals will be harmed, that profession will be obliterated, and those checks will be cashed. THAT'S horrifying.

lrvick 3y ago

Stopping someone from physically harming someone else can come with severe -punishment- as a deterrent and is much more serious than sharing -any- type of data online. Stopping someone from making a digital parody of someone else gets closer to free speech territory and is a lot more complicated. You can make it illegal or try to detect and restrict sharing it in popular apps because it hurts feelings, just like you can outlaw pictures of religious imagery because they hurt feelings, but neither can ever be effectively enforced in an internet that allows open source applications and anonymity. See: piracy. Giving up the right to online anonymity is a non starter as it would make it impossible for journalists and dissidents to communicate freely which is a requirement for democracy to function.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> Stopping someone from physically harming someone else can come with severe -punishment- as a deterrent and is much more serious than sharing -any- type of data online. Stopping someone from making a digital parody of someone else gets closer to free speech territory and is a lot more complicated. This statement is hilarious because we cannot even do the former for schoolchildren, let alone the latter. Between casual bullying resulting in fatalities due to the utter disinterest of the administration at play, to school shootings where police cower outside while someone murders children en masse. Apparently being a child now is just grounds to have people make pornography of you, bully you relentlessly, with the distinct possibility you might die in a hail of gunfire one day for literally no reason. No wonder the birth rate has cratered. > You can make it illegal or try to detect and restrict sharing it in popular apps because it hurts feelings CAN and SHOULD. INCREDIBLY illegal. Like registering the creator as a sex offender illegal, because that's what this is. It's a sex crime. > but neither can ever be effectively enforced in an internet that allows open source applications and anonymity. See: piracy. So we just give up?
- lrvick 3y ago
  Unless you have any ideas for a solution, I suggest we focus on education to contextualize what kids will inevitably see online. Kids are going to see over 18 content be it deepfake or hardcore. Censorship approaches do not work.
  - palata 3y ago
    And teach engineers about ethics, too? I feel like it could help, because they are the one making the technology and often getting a ton of money for it.
    - lrvick 3y ago
      I do wish we taught engineering ethics, because I do not feel like the majority of silicon valley surveillance capitalism tech workers have any ethics beyond following antiquated legal requirements. That said, in a global internet any technology that can be created, will be crated, and made free and open for anyone to use. We can never escape this fact, and can only educate people on how to protect themselves as individuals as much as possible. Google, Facebook, and modern surveillance capitalism app culture is -optional-. Smartphones have turned into a net negative that make most people miserable for instance. I for one do not have a smartphone, and am happier for it.

RetroTechie 3y ago

(..) and that people are just like "well I guess kids now have to worry about classmates making photo realistic depictions of them performing sex acts" is so horrifying. You talk of punishment in the context of physical harm (fist vs. face), while deepfakes concern mental distress at worst. 2nd order effects like reputation damage, lost income etc can be adressed by lawyers. Yes mental distress can be severe to some people. Or (for example) cause a group of people to harass someone. But a) such harassment is a separate act from posting a deepfake. And b) If deepfake postings happen often enough, it kinda takes the sting out. Few people today would be deeply disturbed if someone posts their head shopped onto a pornstar's body. That's easy enough that anyone can do it, it's been done many times, so the newsworthiness / shock value is gone. If you know the victim in person, you'd probably be able to tell whether some video is fake or not. Or ask that person. If victim is a random stranger & deepfake disappears into the 'internet background noise', who cares. Either way, when creating a deepfake is easy enough, it simultaneously grants a victim plausible deniability. So ehm... "horrifying" is too strong a word imho. Try "annoying", "bad taste" or "disrespectful". Punishment (if any) should fit that.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
The blasé attitude of the people building this technology is what makes it horrifying. Literally the FIRST major objections I heard to generative AI/deepfakes was the strong possibility if not guarantee of how it would be utilized by bad actors, be they interpersonal or political in nature. And over and over the tech sphere has downplayed and ignored this reality in favor of the ephemeral "progress" which also happens, by sheer coincidence I'm sure, to be their paths to success both professionally and financially. And on this progress marched until we've reached a place where it is now feasible that a high schooler could take the likeness of a girl he likes, shove it into an image generator, and make porn out of her without her consent or knowledge and be totally free to distribute that however he sees fit. THAT is horrifying. It's horrifying both by the base actions at play and, far moreso IMO, that because someone in the tech space thought it was monetizable enough to warrant investment, it will happen. It did happen. That genie is now out if it's box and when confronted with the ethical dilemmas it seems most people in the engineering space are content to shrug their shoulders and go "shit happens." That's horrifying. It's horrifying that all a technology has to do is demonstrate it's ability to make money, no matter how socially or culturally corrosive it might be, no matter how much harm it might do to individuals or even entire professions, no matter how unethical and just straight up creepy it is, doesn't matter. If it will make someone rich, it will be done, and it will be done with the best hardware and expertise money can buy, and that social order will be corroded, that culture will be corroded, those individuals will be harmed, that profession will be obliterated, and those checks will be cashed. THAT'S horrifying.