The recurring story of new technology is of unintended consequences. Take artificial intelligence (AI)-powered image generators. Their creators have claimed they are enhancing human imagination and making everyone an artist, but they often fail to mention how much they are helping to create illicit deepfake pornography, too. Lots of it.
Over the weekend, X, formerly known as Twitter, had to shut down searches for “Taylor Swift” because the site was flooded with so many faked porn images of the singer that it could not weed them all out. One image alone was viewed more than 45 million times before being taken down. The scandal points to a broader problem: About 96 percent of the deepfakes on the Web are pornographic.
However, it could also be the final tipping point before some genuine solutions are introduced.
Illustration: Mountain People
Enough has happened this month alone to show that in the absence of proper regulation, the harms of generative AI are starting to outweigh the benefits. The technology is being used in more scams and bank fraud, it is making Google search results worse and it is duping voters with fake robocalls from US President Joe Biden.
Yet the attack on Swift shows where generative AI’s toxic effects are most insidious — by creating whole new groups of victims and abusers in a marketplace for unauthorized, sexualized images. They point to the quieter, but no-less damaging way in which generative AI has been undermining the dignity of women, churning out images that are sexualized by default, for instance, with the situation worse for women of color.
Deepfakes epitomize the problem, and until Swift, it had been flying under the radar: High-school students over the past year have used real photos of their female classmates to create deepfake porn. In one small town in Spain, a group of boys used AI tools to digitally “undress” social media images of more than 20 girls between the ages of 11 and 17, before distributing them on WhatsApp and Telegram. Fake porn has been possible for more than two decades thanks to software such as Photoshop, but only now has it become so quick and easy for anyone to produce, with different apps making it possible to swap one person’s face onto another person’s body, for instance.
However, more people and authorities are taking notice now that the latest victim is Swift, Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” who helped add 0.5 percentage points to the US’ GDP; who went to war with streaming services from companies such as Apple Inc and won; and who boosted football’s female viewership.
“We are alarmed by the reports of the circulation of false images,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday last week. “We are going to do what we can to deal with this issue.”
Lawmakers are up in arms, while Swift’s legions of fans got the phrase “protect Taylor Swift” trending on X, and some of them have resorted to vigilante justice, digging out a Twitter user reportedly behind many of the illicit images. Swift is said to be considering taking legal action against a deepfake porn site that published some of them, the Daily Mail reported.
Swift is not one to do things in half measures, so we might see more than just a lawsuit. Perhaps she might put her weight behind some of the bills making their way through the US Congress that tackle unauthorized deepfakes. One bill makes it illegal to create and share such images, while another proposes a five-year prison sentence for perpetrators, as well as legal recourse for victims.
It is easy to shrug our collective shoulders and argue that the cat is out of the bag. The tools have proliferated; some are open source, and as social media networks such as Twitter have cut back on their trust and safety teams, it is possible for deepfakes to go viral. When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was asked about the Swift deepfakes and jumped straight into platitudes about “guardrails” — rather than make any specific policy recommendations — that might be because his firm is at the heart of today’s booming generative AI business. At least some of the Swift likenesses were also created on an image generator from Microsoft, 404 Media said.
There is hope for a solution. Some of the measures going through the US Congress are a start, and while long-term rules are still being ironed out, authorities could get a handle on the situation by making examples of some of the worst perpetrators. Deterrents could work, even for people who think they can hide behind the cloak of online anonymity. A prime example is the online hacktivist group Anonymous, whose activities died down almost immediately after a handful of its most well-known hackers were arrested and named about a decade ago. One X user has already admitted to posting some of the first images that went viral, saying “Bro what have I done... They might pass new laws because of my Taylor Swift post,” before his account was set to private, Newsweek reported.
Well before Swift became a victim, many young women who did not have the same kind of influence were experiencing the psychological distress of being targeted. They have had to pick up the pieces after watching their reputations get humiliatingly tarnished online and suffer long-term consequences. When it is unauthorized, deepfake porn is no joke — it is a form of digital sexual violence that threatens to fuel a broader culture of online misogyny and abuse. Perhaps more than any other woman on Earth, Swift has the clout to help make it stop. Here is to hoping that she makes the most of the opportunity.
Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of We Are Anonymous. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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