AI'S NEW PORN POSITION

Deepfakes and artificial intelligence-generated images have breathed new life into the porn industry. Celebrities have become the latest victims and revenge porn is on the rise

- Nandini Keshari

In late January this year, Swifties were in for a shock. Pornographic images of their icon had flooded social media platforms. They were quick to react and forced the platforms to take down the images. But not before around 47 million people around the world saw them.

Taylor Swift is not alone. In February, pornographic images of popular American podcaster and influencer Bobbi Althoff were uploaded on X (formerly Twitter) and garnered over 4.5 million views in just nine hours.

The problem is not just intrusion of privacy but that these images are fakes generated using artificial intelligence (AI) and are called "deepfakes". Celebs form the mostviewed cohort among the victims. Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Bell, Nora Fatehi, Rashmika Mandanna, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Shraddha Kapoor, Tom Hanks and Sachin Tendulkar are among the celebrities who have had their deepfake videos or photos circulated online. While those of men are used to market various business plans, the women's are of a pornographic nature.

More deepfake videos have been posted online in 2023 than every other year combined. There are over 40 dedicated websites and 61 'nudifier' apps, a majority of which sprung up in 2023

Disturbing Data

The numbers are a cause for worry: MrDeepFakes, a website, had 88.4 million visits in January alone, according to Semrush, a US-based online traffic analytics service. The number of synthetic adult videos has increased 24-fold between 2019 and 2023. Last year 143,868 new deepfake videos were uploaded online, according to Genevieve Oh, a South Korea-based independent data analyst for live-streaming platforms.