Fake Photos, Real Harm: AOC and the Fight Against AI Porn

jeffw@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 81 points –
Fake Photos, Real Harm: AOC and the Fight Against AI Porn
rollingstone.com
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The article surmises:

What will happen when voters can’t separate truth from lies? And what are the stakes?

Regrettably this has been true since the beginning of time about many issues and is not something that legislation can ever hope to change.

I think we've all seen that the abuse of deepfakes is coming at society like a tidal wave. But I don't think legislating away the technology that makes it possible is even remotely going the right direction. That cat is already out of the bag, so to speak.

What needs to be be legislated, however, is personal responsibility for creating (with some limitations) or distributing sexual content that is designed to harm. As a society we already believe this when it comes to revenge porn. But I don't think it's as simple.

Creation is not necessarily a crime, but the intent or positioning during distribution may make something that's innocent become a crime. Perhaps we cover that with libel laws already. If a picture is true and serves the public interest, it probably doesn't qualify as libel even if it could harm the target. Obviously, an appropriate venue is necessary, because seeing graphic adult content can also be harmful in its own right, which is why we put porn on porn dedicated websites.

I guess to sum up my ideas... There's not much we can do to prevent somebody from generating AI pictures depicting AOC - or your high school crush - in some sort of abusive sexualized graphic state. But we can, and should, impose a high penalty for distributing that material as truth. And there should also be a social penalty for distributing that material even if it's labeled as fake or imaginary from the beginning.

This seems like a slippery slope.

In what way?

Effectively making it illegal to create likenesses of people. She’s talking about an edited photo unless I’m mistaken? She wants to make it illegal to create a video of someone in a pornographic state. I assume that’s because porn specifically is a hard limit for her. But why can’t that hard limit be something else down the road like making images of people doing illegal things? Or just things you’re not comfortable with?

Making edits of people is nothing new. The only difference is the ease of access to quality edits which, in my opinion, only serves to discredit photo and video as evidence of fact and I’m totally ok with that already.

I think revenge porn, whether real or just claiming to be real, is a hard limit for literally everybody on earth who isn't already engaging in that behavior.

Like, I really want to like the libertarian movement. I think there are some good ideas there, but the movement always returns back to this: the defense of sex crimes.

It just bugs me that this is the hill ya'll choose to die on, every single time.

Should it be illegal for someone to draw a hyper realistic image of another person in a compromising position? It’s not and shouldn’t be. It’s the basis to satire and historically and answer to power imbalances.

My point was that this has always been possible - the discussion seems to be around the new easy access.

I have no clue what political thing you are adding, not super interested in foreign politics.

We are specifically talking about forcing people to engage in pornography against their will, not political satire.

I have a hard time believing anybody who isn't a sex criminal is incapable of understanding that difference.

We are specifically talking about forcing people to engage in pornography against their will, not political satire.

I mean, we aren't talking about that, because the topic at hand is specifically porn that people aren't being forced to engage in, but rather porn that pretends to do so really, really well. And that difference is at the core of the point you're ignoring.

I have a hard time believing anybody who isn't a sex criminal is incapable of understanding that difference.

Ah, yes, resorting to ad hominem when logic and rhetoric fail you. Stay classy.

I have to pay Tom Holland rights if I want to use his likeness for a video game, and he can turn me down at any time, but you want the right to use anybody's likeness without their consent or financial gain so you can create porn?

I understand the point you're making. Deepfake porn is definitely "too far", and editing celebrities to look like funny caricatures of themselves is definitely not "too far", but exactly where should the line fall? Do we err on the side of being too restrictive so that nobody is offended? Or err on the side of being too lax so that nobody has losses a "legitimate use" of the technology?

The slippery slope is literally a logical fallacy