The Evolution of AI-Generated Porn: From Crude Beginnings to Eerily Realistic Art
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
6/6/20243 min read
Once a niche and relatively underdeveloped area, AI porn generators have significantly advanced in a short period. However, these advancements bring with them a host of ethical and societal concerns.
The Early Days: Bizarre and Unsettling Results
When efforts to create AI porn generators were first covered nearly a year ago, the technology was in its infancy. The early applications and models often produced bizarre and unsettling images. AI struggled with the nuances of human anatomy, frequently generating physically impossible subjects—extra limbs, misplaced features, and other grotesque distortions.
Fast forward to today, and a simple search for "AI porn generator" yields numerous results, many of which are freely accessible. The quality of these images has improved to the point where some can easily be mistaken for professional artwork. Yet, as the technology improves, the ethical questions surrounding it grow more complex.
The Real-World Impacts: Harassment, Exploitation, and Legal Repercussions
The commodification of AI porn tools is starting to have troubling real-world consequences. A recent incident involving Twitch personality Brandon Ewing (Atrioc) highlights the potential for abuse. Ewing was caught viewing nonconsensually deepfaked sexual images of well-known women streamers, which led to widespread harassment of the targeted creators.
These incidents are not isolated. A Washington Post article recounts how a school teacher lost her job after AI-generated porn in her likeness surfaced online. Moreover, a 22-year-old was jailed for creating sexually explicit deepfakes using underage women's photos from social media. Even more disturbing is the reported increase in AI-generated child sexual abuse material on the dark web.
Unstable Diffusion: Pioneering AI Porn with Controversy
One prominent group in the AI porn landscape is Unstable Diffusion. Emerging from the open-sourced Stable Diffusion model, Unstable Diffusion quickly built a community on platforms like Reddit and Discord. The group’s focus on creating and monetizing porn-generating models led to the development of a platform now used by over 350,000 people, generating more than half a million images daily.
Arman Chaudhry, co-founder of Unstable Diffusion, emphasizes the group's commitment to "freedom of expression." The platform offers a wide range of customization options, allowing users to generate images in various styles and adjust features like color palette and saturation. Despite their progress, ethical issues such as artist consent and content moderation remain contentious.
Quality and Bias in AI Porn Generation
Despite improvements, AI porn generators like those from Unstable Diffusion still struggle with certain aspects of image generation. Complex scenes and multiple participants often result in unnatural and bizarre depictions. Additionally, there are significant biases in the generated images—prompts for "men" and "women" typically produce white or Asian subjects, and body types are often idealized unless specified otherwise.
The platform's attempts at content moderation also raise questions. While it blocks certain types of illegal content, the filters are not foolproof, and issues with deepfake generation persist. The group’s stance on creating a safe and respectful environment is contradicted by its history and ongoing challenges with moderating inappropriate content.
Looking Forward: Ethical and Financial Challenges
Unstable Diffusion's future is uncertain. The group aims to evolve into a mainstream generative art platform, but its association with explicit content complicates funding opportunities. Traditional venture capital is off-limits due to vice clauses, pushing the group to seek alternative funding methods.
Furthermore, the broader debate about artist consent and compensation looms large. Many generative AI models, including those from Unstable Diffusion, are trained on vast datasets of images scraped from the web without the original artists' permission. This has led to lawsuits and bans from various online communities.
Navigating the Ethical Minefield
As AI-generated porn technology advances, the stakes continue to rise. Unstable Diffusion and similar platforms face a delicate balancing act: pushing the boundaries of generative art while addressing the ethical and legal implications. The journey ahead is fraught with controversy, but the ongoing dialogue about AI ethics and responsible usage is more critical than ever.
Original source: https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/21/as-ai-porn-generators-get-better-the-stakes-raise/