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Not to change drastically from the subject matter of the original article, but I think really the most troubling thing to me listed here is how willing many men

Not to change drastically from the subject matter of the original article, but I think really the most troubling thing to me listed here is how willing many men are to interacting with openly fake AI accounts on these apps. And this is not meant at all to mock these men, I'm genuinely concerned for the welfare of the kind of man who is so deprived and isolated of attention that he's ready to swipe his credit card for an AI-powered chat-bot with generated titties to tell him it loves him. It makes me think of all the Replika users who got (somewhat rightfully I feel) pissed off when they paywalled erotic/romantic engagement. Again, not judgement. Pity. I feel bad for these people who are so without any kind of social connections and/or the ability to get them that chat bots feel like their only options. There are so many social sicknesses here that technical and market solutions are attempting to band-aid and it's genuinely depressing. Also as an aside, using real people's faces for deepfake pornography should be prosecuted just like any other kind of sexual assault with similar consequences. That shit is disgusting and I will not respond to any comment saying otherwise, I don't care if you didn't actually touch her, or whatever excuse you have on offer. You have created exploitative material of a sexual nature without consent, that's assault, period, paragraph.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Those sad men aren't necessarily interacting with AI-powered chat bots. OnlyFans models have been outsourcing their chatting with fans to workers in the developing world for years now. As anglophone countries, Nigeria and Kenya have been able to draw a lot of this outsourcing, and the person pretending to be the model is male probably more often than not.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  I mean, even the "best" version of this is men ready to put down money to interact with a performer which is some combination of AI/exploited overseas worker/exploited sex worker to attempt via the only way they see as viable to fill the yawning chasm of loneliness in their souls. That's still depressing.
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    How exactly is the sex worker masterminding the operation being exploited?
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
      It’s not always the sex worker masterminding the operation. Especially in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, the models are often under the exploitive control of pimps, and it is the pimps who outsource the model’s chatting for the sake of greater income.
    - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
      I mean, in a perfect world, sex workers would choose sex work because it's work they wanted to do. However there are numerous factors that complicate this: 1) The existence of sex pests like Andrew Tate who openly recruit and exploit young women into working for them as adult performers 2) The socio-economic realities of where a given person grows up and is raised in, which greatly affects their prospects in life in general which may artificially make sex work a more appealing option 3) The overarching threat of starvation which may force someone with literally no other options to do it, lest they end up homeless and freeze to death. This is where some feminists and "anti-porn" activists have problems with it, because in an exploitative system that demands you work in some way to survive, there is an argument to be made that no sex work can be truly thought to be entirely devoid of some form of coercion, and therefore the sex involved in that sex work cannot, in turn, be entirely devoid of coercion, which makes it, by definition, rape. I don't particularly subscribe to that belief as I believe it trivializes the free will and agency of performers, but like, I also can't entirely say that it's incorrect. I see the bones of the reasoning and it does make sense to me, and there surely are a ton, an absolutely stressful amount of sex workers out there right now, who are doing it because it is the only path to a decent quality of life available to them (or worse, their sole method of survival due to systemic or more direct threats). And if I found out a given performer who's content I enjoy was one of those people, I can't say I wouldn't be uncomfortable with it.
      - brazzy 3y ago
lilboiluvr69 3y ago
Not to be that guy but why is a fictional depiction of porn different than a fictional depiction of anything else? What makes sex so special? If I made fake porn of Donald Trump under your explanation, that is considered sexual assault, even if I tell everyone it is fake. Why? Would making a parody video of Donald Trump getting beaten up also be considered assault? Would making a parody video of the pope denouncing god be considered the same? I'm sure all three are genuinely offensive. I'm just trying to understand, maybe its because I have a background growing up in a clothing optional community and being in poly relationships so I just have a much less taboo view of sexuality. But how can a fake video of someone that everyone knows is fake by itself be assault? It sounds like you just want it to be illegal because it offends you. Instead of making it illegal to generate AI porn of celebrities, maybe we should examine our culture and why we see sexualization as so threatening. Why do we freak out if our kids see two people having sex but don't blink an eye when they see violence in movies?
- almatabata 3y ago
  Most countries have exemptions around satire. If you did not you could not do things like puppet shows for example. Hence you could distribute any AI generated image if it looks like satire. With porn however you have no such exemptions, as such the copyright law applies and you cannot simply duplicate somebodies likeness without their explicit approval.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > the copyright law applies and you cannot simply duplicate somebodies likeness In many countries (like the US), someone's likeness is not covered by copyright law in the first place (in some US jurisdictions, publicity/personality rights may apply, but these are state-law rights and more likely to apply to people, e.g. celebrities, with already-commercialized identities, and against commercial use; they are much more limited than copyright rights.) For porn/nudes specifically, revenge porn laws (which mostly are aimed at unauthorized release of actual imagery of the targeted kind, but aren’t always narrowly crafted) might also apply.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

Those sad men aren't necessarily interacting with AI-powered chat bots. OnlyFans models have been outsourcing their chatting with fans to workers in the developing world for years now. As anglophone countries, Nigeria and Kenya have been able to draw a lot of this outsourcing, and the person pretending to be the model is male probably more often than not.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
I mean, even the "best" version of this is men ready to put down money to interact with a performer which is some combination of AI/exploited overseas worker/exploited sex worker to attempt via the only way they see as viable to fill the yawning chasm of loneliness in their souls. That's still depressing.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  How exactly is the sex worker masterminding the operation being exploited?
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    It’s not always the sex worker masterminding the operation. Especially in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, the models are often under the exploitive control of pimps, and it is the pimps who outsource the model’s chatting for the sake of greater income.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    I mean, in a perfect world, sex workers would choose sex work because it's work they wanted to do. However there are numerous factors that complicate this: 1) The existence of sex pests like Andrew Tate who openly recruit and exploit young women into working for them as adult performers 2) The socio-economic realities of where a given person grows up and is raised in, which greatly affects their prospects in life in general which may artificially make sex work a more appealing option 3) The overarching threat of starvation which may force someone with literally no other options to do it, lest they end up homeless and freeze to death. This is where some feminists and "anti-porn" activists have problems with it, because in an exploitative system that demands you work in some way to survive, there is an argument to be made that no sex work can be truly thought to be entirely devoid of some form of coercion, and therefore the sex involved in that sex work cannot, in turn, be entirely devoid of coercion, which makes it, by definition, rape. I don't particularly subscribe to that belief as I believe it trivializes the free will and agency of performers, but like, I also can't entirely say that it's incorrect. I see the bones of the reasoning and it does make sense to me, and there surely are a ton, an absolutely stressful amount of sex workers out there right now, who are doing it because it is the only path to a decent quality of life available to them (or worse, their sole method of survival due to systemic or more direct threats). And if I found out a given performer who's content I enjoy was one of those people, I can't say I wouldn't be uncomfortable with it.
    - brazzy 3y ago

lilboiluvr69 3y ago

Not to be that guy but why is a fictional depiction of porn different than a fictional depiction of anything else? What makes sex so special? If I made fake porn of Donald Trump under your explanation, that is considered sexual assault, even if I tell everyone it is fake. Why? Would making a parody video of Donald Trump getting beaten up also be considered assault? Would making a parody video of the pope denouncing god be considered the same? I'm sure all three are genuinely offensive. I'm just trying to understand, maybe its because I have a background growing up in a clothing optional community and being in poly relationships so I just have a much less taboo view of sexuality. But how can a fake video of someone that everyone knows is fake by itself be assault? It sounds like you just want it to be illegal because it offends you. Instead of making it illegal to generate AI porn of celebrities, maybe we should examine our culture and why we see sexualization as so threatening. Why do we freak out if our kids see two people having sex but don't blink an eye when they see violence in movies?

almatabata 3y ago
Most countries have exemptions around satire. If you did not you could not do things like puppet shows for example. Hence you could distribute any AI generated image if it looks like satire. With porn however you have no such exemptions, as such the copyright law applies and you cannot simply duplicate somebodies likeness without their explicit approval.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > the copyright law applies and you cannot simply duplicate somebodies likeness In many countries (like the US), someone's likeness is not covered by copyright law in the first place (in some US jurisdictions, publicity/personality rights may apply, but these are state-law rights and more likely to apply to people, e.g. celebrities, with already-commercialized identities, and against commercial use; they are much more limited than copyright rights.) For porn/nudes specifically, revenge porn laws (which mostly are aimed at unauthorized release of actual imagery of the targeted kind, but aren’t always narrowly crafted) might also apply.
ToucanLoucan 3y ago