The spread of fake photos of Taylor Swift created by artificial intelligence, in which the superstar was presented in pornographic contexts, has once again brought to mind the growing danger of the creation of entire photos and videos by advanced artificial intelligence software.
The same software can develop images and videos that look disturbingly realistic, in which young men and women (and even children) will be depicted in a blatantly pornographic manner - in addition to allowing people to make revenge porn videos against their ex-partners.
The one who warns about this reality and the international need for legislation against the creation of such is Daniel Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia who specializes in human rights and the general public's right to privacy.
"This is a phenomenon that affects not only celebs, but also completely ordinary people - students, teachers, journalists, basically everyone," she said in an interview with the CNN network.
"We have already seen the effects of the phenomenon on high school students and military personnel. This is something that hurts everyone."
Is it really her?
Taylor Swift (archive), photo: I.P.
Ben Decker, director of the digital intelligence and investigation company Memetica, explained to CNN that today there are no software programs that know how to properly monitor the content that is distributed online.
"Most information platforms forbid sharing manipulative material or material that is taken out of context and can deceive users, X (formerly Twitter) for example relies only on reports from surfers and its other automated systems. It fired most of its content management team," he said.
CNN reached out to X for comment, but it did not respond.
The senior researcher noted that it's not just X, as many social networks have reduced their human content teams dealing with disinformation and various campaigns.
"What happened with Taylor Swift is an excellent example of the way in which artificial intelligence produces content for malicious reasons that is released to social networks, while at the same time there are not enough barriers to protect and prevent it from reaching the general public," he said.
All may meet from the phenomenon (illustration), photo: Getty Images
An alarming situation
Beyond harming private individuals, the capabilities of artificial intelligence threaten, according to the experts, a direct threat to global democracy.
These experts raised real concerns with CNN regarding the various election systems that will be run around the world in 2024, including the one that will be held in the United States in November.
Warnings of this type have already been published, but in the current warning it was stated that the new technologies have a real ability to radically deteriorate the election systems in the world to the point of substantially harming them.
White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre commented on the disturbing trend last Friday by saying that "this is a worrying situation. We are alarmed by the reports of the distribution of fake photos like the ones published (of Taylor Swift, AG), this is a worrying phenomenon".
Another very disturbing aspect that comes to the surface, although not enough, is the aggressive harm that can be caused to women whose faces will be stolen without their consent and used to produce explicit pornographic videos.
This is a practice reminiscent of the revenge porn videos of the past, which were actually intentional leaks of real intimate videos, but today artificial intelligence makes it possible to produce a whole array of such revenges when it will not be possible to determine at all whether it is real content or something cooked up by technology.
Artificial intelligence (illustration), photo: Getty Images
The one who began to act on the issue is Francesca Mani, a high school student in New Jersey, whose fake pornographic images of her and 30 other female students were shared by students at her school.
After the incident, Money launched a whole public campaign aimed at persuading the US government to enact a special law against this harmful activity.
Dr. Raymond Gonzalez, the principal of the Westfield school where Manny studies, expressed support for his student's call: "The schools in all the districts here are dealing with one or another effect of artificial intelligence on the students."
Prof. Citron herself believes that the creators and viewers of such films cannot be convicted under the existing pornography laws, especially the laws against viewing child pornography.
"There is no child abuse or harm happening here at all, but the feeling of humiliation and the hard feeling that someone has become a sexual object is something that seriously interferes with their social esteem, and action must be taken against this," she concluded.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us