I grew up in the era of Photoshop and people would post fake nudes. Why is it now a big deal that AI is doing it? Kinda like the Taylor Swift thing on twitter.
so anyone can do it and the victim can be your neighbor next door, not some celebrity, where you can internally normalize it with "well, it is a price of fame"
When Photoshop first appeared, image manipulations that would seem obvious and amateurish by today’s standards were considered very convincing—the level of skill needed to fool large numbers of people didn’t increase until people became more familiar with the technology and more vigilant at spotting it. I suspect the same process will play out with AI images—in a few years people will be much more experienced at detecting them, and making a convincing fake will take as much effort as it now does in Photoshop.
I have been a professional editor for decades and I can tell you that probably 30 to 40% of fakes still get past me, and I am much better at spotting these things any of you are lol
To operate a model plane, there was a not-small amount of effort you needed to work through (building, specialist components, local club, access to a proper field, etc.).
This meant that by the time you were flying, you probably had a pretty good understanding of being responsible with the new skill.
In the era of self-stabilising GPS guided UAVs delivered next-day ready-to-fly, the barrier to entry flew down.
And it took a little while for the legislation to catch up from "the clubs are usually sensible" to "don't fly a 2KG drone over a crowd of people at head height with no experience or training"
It would also take a lot more effort to get something even remotely believable. You would need to go through thousands of body and face photos to get a decent match and then put in some effort pairing the two photos together. A decent "nude" photo of a celebrity would probably take at least a day to make the first one.
I mean, inpainting isn't particularly hard to make use of. There are also tools specifically for the purpose of generating "deepfake" nudes. The barrier for entry is much, much lower.
It's not that now it's bad... it's that now it's actually being addressed. Whereas before it was just something people would sweep under the rug as being distasteful, but not worthy of attention.
It was easier to ignore when teenagers couldn’t produce convincing images of their classmates with about 5min of research and a mediocre piece of software, then plaster it all over their friend groups or - god forbid - online forums/social media.
It's a bit of a blend of it has always been a big deal, and that it is indeed more of a big deal still now because of how easy, accessible, and believable the AI can be. Like even nowadays, Photoshop hits only one point of that triangle. But it was even less capable back in the day. It could hit half of one of those points at any given time.
Basically, a nude generated by a good AI has to be proven false. Because it doesn't always immediately seem as such at first. If you have seen obvious AI fakes, they are just that, obvious. There are many non-obvious ones that you might have seen and not known they were fake. That is, of course, assuming you have looked.
The other reason it can be more of a big deal now is that kids have been doing it of other kids. And since the results can be believable, the parents didn't know they were fake to start with. So it would blow up as if it was real before finding out it was AI. And anything involving that is gonna be a big deal.
I mean, that was an issue in the first month or so. Though I could see if the automated tools people use for this specific purpose might not stay up to date. I haven't specifically interacted with those. But proper AI tools have in-filling to correct mistakes like that, you can keep the rest of the image and just "reroll" a section of it until whatever you didn't like about it is fixed. Super quick and easy.
Well, I think everyone has already covered that it was a big deal at the time, it simply wasn't something we could wipe out as a society.
And it's still a big deal.
However, I don't think anyone touched on why fake nudes, even ones that are obviously fake, or even labeled as fake by the creator are a problem.
It comes back to the entire idea of consent. That's for anyone, but women in particular are heavily sexualized, even well before they're women. There is a constant, unending pressure on women of knowing that they are going to be sexually objectified. It might not be every day, by everyone alive around them, but it is inescapable.
One can debate whether or not nudity should be a big deal, whether or not it is sexualized because of the rules a given culture has around nudity, but the hard truth is that nudity is sexualized. Ergo, images of a woman's body is something that they deserve to have control over access to. If someone consents to images being available, great! If they don't, then there's a problem.
Fakes, even obvious and declared fakes, violate that barrier of body autonomy. They directly ignore the person's wishes regarding their naked body.
The better the fake, the worse that violation is, because (as others said), once a fake is good enough, the subject of the fake is put in the position of having to deny it's them. They shouldn't have to ever be in that position, no matter who it is.
Even a porn performer should have the ability to be free of fakes because they didn't consent to those fakes. They also have a very valid claim on it infringing on their income as well. Now, I'm certain that legal fakes will someday be a thing. There will be contracts for likeness rights to produce fake porn. Bet on it. If I had free income, I would immediately invest in such an endeavor because I guarantee it will make money.
But, as things stand, fakes are no better than someone taking a picture through a window shade, or using infrared to sneak by clothing. It's digital, and it's fake, but it is the direct equivalent of violating someone's privacy and body autonomy.
That's why it's a big deal to begin with.
And, yeah, it is something that's here to stay, it's unavoidable. And someone is bound to comment that they wouldn't care. Great, good for you. That doesn't obligate others to not care too. But, put it to the test and provide a few pictures of yourself in your comment so that someone can make a fake nude of you, then plaster it online with zero context and labeled with at least your user name so everyone running across it can direct responses to it to you.
It's all about personal privacy, consent, and body autonomy.
Because now, anyone can do it to anyone with zero effort and a single photo.
Sure, before anyone with decent Photoshop skills could put together a halfway decently convincing fake nude but its still significantly more effort and time than most would be bothered with and even then its fairly easy to spot and dispute a fake.
Most people weren't concerned if a celebrity's fake nudes were spread around before but now that a colleague, student, teacher, family member, or even a random member of the public could generate a convincing photo the threat has become far more real and far more conceivable
Because previously if someone had the skills to get rich off the skill making convincing fake nudes we could arrest and punish them - people with similar skillsets would usually prefer more legitimate work.
Now some ass in his basement can crank them out and it's a futile game of whack-a-mole to kill them dead.
It's still going to be futile even with this law in place. Society is going to have to get used to the fact that photo-realistic images aren't evidence of anything (especially since the technology will keep improving).
It blows my mind when I think about where we might be headed with this tech. We've gotten SO used to the ability to communicate instantly with people far away in the technology age, how will we adapt when we have to go back 300 years and can only trust something someone tells us in person. Will we go back to local newspapers? Or can we not even trust that? Will we have public amphitheaters in busy parts of town, where people will around the news? And we can only trust these people, who have a direct chain of acquaintance all the way back to the source of the information? That seems extreme, but I dunno.
I think most likely we won't implement extreme measures like that, to ensure we're still getting genuine information. I think most likely we'll just slip into completely generated false news from every source, no longer have any idea what's really going on, but be convinced this AI thing was overblown, and have no idea we're being controlled.
It was a big deal back then, too, but a lot harder to police, and a lot more obvious that they were fakes.
Gillian Anderson fakes were real fuckin popular during the time the X-Files were on the air.
EDIT: Searching for women from the time talking about the phenomenon in the 90's is difficult because it mostly turns up... troves of fake nudes of these women. Of course.
I recall women heavily disliking it back then, but I also recall that people in general viewed the internet as just full of weirdos and creeps. Internet wasn't mainstream, by any stretch of the imagination, so I think it likely "got swept under the rug" because of a general feeling of "who cares what weirdos do online? We're real people and we never use the internet because we have lives."
Also, fewer lawyers understood the tech at the time, or how to figure out who was producing these images, and how to prosecute them. So I'd wager that part of going after them was held back by tech-unsavvy lawyers who were like "What's happening where and how? Dowhatnow? Can you FAX it to me?"
I have a similar opininipn. People have been forging!/editing photographs and movies for as long as the technique existed.
Now any stupid kid can do it, the hard part with AI is actually not getting porn. If it can teach everyone that fake photo are a thing, and make nudes worthless (what's the point of a nude anyway ? Genitals looks like... Genitals)
Imagine this happening to your kid(s) or SO. Imagine this happening to you as a hormonal, confused 15 year old.
Would you tell them “this doesn’t really matter”?
Kids have killed themselves because they feel ostracized by social media, the act of just not being included or having a “great life” like they think they see everyone else having. You think they’re simply going to adapt to a world where their classmates (and complete strangers) can torture them with convincing nude images?
This is the bullying equivalent of a nuclear weapon IMO
If AI is so convincing, why would anyone care about nudes being controversial anymore? You can just assume it's always fake. If everything is fake, why would anyone care?
That is where we are not seeing this the same way. You wanna make fake images, knock yourself out. I don't care who they are. Make some of me for all I care.
Specifically because it's convincing. You may just assume everything is fake, that doesn't mean everyone will. You may not care about seeing someone's imperceptibly realistic nude, but if it's depicting them they may care, and they deserve the right for people not to see them like that.
Just because it's not logistically feasible to prevent convincing AI nudes from spreading around doesn't make it ethical
How do you prove it's not you in either case? Photoshop doesn't make a whole video of you fucking a sheep. But AI can and is actively being used that way. With Photoshop it was a matter of getting ahold of the file and inspecting it. Even the best Photoshop jobs have some key tells. Artifacting, layering, all kinds of shading and lighting, how big the file is, etc.
I want to add something. What if all the sudden it's your 12 year old daughter being portrayed in this fake? What if it's your mom? It would have been a big deal to you to have that image out there of your loved one back in the 90's or early 2000's. It's the same kind of big deal now but more widespread because it's so easy now. It's not okay to just use the image of someone in ways they didn't consent to. I have a similar issue with facial recognition regardless of the fact that it's used in public places where I have no control over it.
Doctored photos have always been a problem and, legally speaking, could lead to the faker being sued for defamation, depending on what was done with the person's image.
AI Photos are only part of the problem. Faking the voice is also possible, as is making "good enough" videos where you just change the head of the actual performer.
Another part of the problem is that this kind of stuff spreads like wildfire within groups (and it's ALWAYS groups where the victim is) and any voices stating that it's fake will be drowned by everyone else.
In addition the the reduced skill barriers mentioned, the other side effect is the reduced time spent finding a matching photo and actually doing the work. Anyone can create it in their spare time, quickly and easily.
I sorta feel this way. Before that people would make cutout mashups or artistic types might depict something. I do get that its getting so real folks may things the people actually did the thing.
I got a few comments pointing this out. But media is hell bent on convincing people to hate AI tools and advancements. Why? I don't know.
Tin foil hate is that it can be an equalizer. Powerful people that own media like to keep power tools to themselves and want the regular folk to fear and regulate ourselves from using it.
Like could you imagine if common folk rode dragons in GOT. Absolutely disgusting. People need to fear them and only certain people can use it.
Same idea. If you're skeptical, go look up all the headlines about AI in the past year and compare them to right wing media's headlines about immigration. They're practically identical.
You're looking for a cat's fifth leg. There is no conspiracy. It's just new technology and what's new is scary, specially big leaps, which this new age of machine learning seems to be part of.
It's only a big deal because of puritan society like in the US or UK or similar in the first place. There are societies where nudity is not a big deal anyway, so nude photos of someone are also no big deal.
Look at Germany for example. Lots of FKK (nude) areas. No one really bats an eye. Of course there nudity is also not perfectly normalized, especially in some circles. But still, not many are concerned about nude pictures of themselves.
Obviously AI makes more nude pictures faster than someone skilled at Photoshop. So if your society has a problem with nudity, there will be more problems than before.
They're not even actual nudes - they're fake. It seems to me to be no different than putting someone's head on a Big Bird photo.
That said, nobody gets to decide what's offensive to other people. Just do as they ask and don't do the fake nudes. It's not like there's a shortage of porn done by willing adults.
I'm not saying people should do it. I'm just talking about a fundamental principle to keep yourself happy: to not be hurt by what other people are doing. In the end, you can't control what other people will do. But you can control your reaction to what they do.
Of course, everyone is also allowed to disagree with this advice. I'm just sharing what works for me. If someone wants to feel bad/offended about someone making a fake nude of them, I don't want to stop anyone doing that (and I can't).