AI Porn Presents Creative Opportunities and Deep Ethical Concerns

The Sky’s the Limit for Immersive Fantasy and Malicious Misuse

Is the future of sex going to be like the scene in Demolition Man where Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock get up close and personal via Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR)? AI websites that went for $7,250 on a good day in 2018 are now worth more than $500,000 according to Domain Investing, so that’s not an unthinkable reality.

Whatever the future may hold, AI is shaking up the adult industry in all kinds of ways. With what feels like an infinite number of interactive and increasingly realistic possibilities, it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement of the moment. However, the ability to create photorealistic images and videos also opens the possibility of misuse, which raises serious ethical concerns.

With the 2021 suicide of a British teen whose images were converted into deepfake porn and distributed among her schoolmates and the January ban of Taylor Swift searches on Twitter due to deepfake porn pretending to be photos of her circulating on the platform, the potential for harm has tangible examples.

As usual, the adult entertainment industry is at the forefront of new technology, and with an increasing number of Americans admitting that loneliness is a major issue for them, AI has great potential to provide temporary companionship. Romance apps including MyPeach.ai and Replika use AI-generated text and images to create a realistic chat and sext experience. According to an article in The Guardian, these interactions can feature deepfakes of real people, portray sexual abuse, or even lead to harassment by chatbots who refuse to be ignored, all of which need to be addressed. Further underlining the potential for harm is research from a 2019 study by Deep Trace that found that 96 percent of deepfake videos were pornographic.

Currently, as TheWeek points out, there are no federal laws in the United States to protect victims of non-consensual deepfakes, but producers can affix a digital watermark identifying the content as AI-generated. Supported by the Biden administration, this solution is being considered by Google, Meta, and ChatGPT.

While some may question the importance of developing this protection, The Journal of Sex Research published a study last year that showed major porn sites receive more visits than Amazon, TikTok, Zoom, and Netflix. That’s a lot of potential to both make people happy and cause big trouble. Another report, released by social media analytics company Graphika, found a 2,000-percent increase in links promoting AI websites that create non-consensual images of graphic behavior.

In addition to concerns about the non-authorized use of real human images, there remains the question of how to compensate performers whose likenesses are used to create content and whether the wealth of imaginary fantasy recreation will cause employment problems for those working in more traditional sectors of the adult industry.

The increasing ability of AI to create immersive romantic and sexual scenarios is impressive but it’s important to remember that AI generators are amoral. This makes it easier for users to convince the software to walk far beyond the wild side and cross into inappropriate and/or illegal content, sex with a celebrity, or even sex with a friend, family member, or coworker.

For these reasons, and more, not everyone is sold on the idea of a future dominated by AI performances. Heather Cox, director of operations for Elevated X, opines that “AI can’t replace performers, and people who say that are misunderstanding what performers do.” Nonetheless, she acknowledges that “this technology will catch on and it will get abusive before it gets helpful.”

That doesn’t mean that some recognizable names in the adult industry aren’t embracing the new technology and hoping to do more good than harm. Steve Lightspeed told The Washington Post that he has seen income from his more than 30 sites rise and fall over the years. Previously making half a million dollars a month, the bottom fell out of his financial world in 2013 when Pornhub appeared on the scene to host free content. Then the popularity of AI content caught his attention and, with the help of an old business partner and a mysterious angel investor, he purchased Porn.ai, Deepfake.com, and Deepfakes.com.

It was then that Lightspeed discovered that most AI image-generators block NSFW content, which meant that studying the technology and finding suitable pre-generated models was difficult. Undaunted, Jones is positioned to provide platforms for users to create their own “dream girl,” position her as they want, and place her within a setting of their choosing. Early samples were lovely but sometimes contained extra fingers, a stray arm, or other abnormalities. With a user base of about 500,000 people, the end product continues to improve as subscribers generate up to five images per day with free accounts and more with paid accounts. All this without mistreating, underpaying, or putting performers at risk in the 1.6 million images created so far.

Another industry icon whose income took a power hit from the launch of OnlyFans according to The Washington Post, is Peter Acworth, the owner of Kink.com. Known for buying the San Francisco Armory in 2006 as a studio for his BDSM content, his business moved out in 2017 and his team of engineers are now training an image-generation model to know the difference between consensual kink and genuine images of abuse. Part of the solution, Acworth explains, is to not let users type in a request sentence but, instead, click a series of content checkboxes.

This is all good news for consumers, but performers will not necessarily feel the financial benefit of these innovations for a simple reason, most have signed contracts that give away the rights to their likenesses in all possible media, present or future. This means that not only will those performers likely not be compensated for their AI appearances, but they may find images of themselves doing things they may find offensive or abusive.

Talent agent Mark Spiegler doesn’t see a collective bargaining option as a realistic option for adult entertainers, as compared to the recent SAG-AFTRA decision to include AI representations in its members' contracts. According to Spiegler, who represents talent including Asa Akira, and says he receives multiple weekly requests to buy or license clients’ AI likenesses, such a thing is unlikely in porn. “This industry doesn’t like rules.”

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