Thousands view AI videos of women being murdered

Graphic and violent videos of women being tortured and murdered are being created using Google’s AI generator and shared across the internet, intensifying concerns that the technology is fuelling misogynistic abuse.

- HARRIETTE BOUCHER

One account on YouTube, called WomanShotA.I, uploaded dozens of such videos showing women pleading for their lives before being shot, which had garnered nearly 200,000 views since June. It was removed only after tech reporting site 404 Media alerted the platform.

The videos, made using Google's AI-generator Veo 3, were prompted to be made by humans and then shared across the internet.

Some of the videos were titled "captured girls shot in head", "Japanese schoolgirls shot in breast", "female reporter tragic end".

Durham University law professor Clare McGlynn, a leading expert on violence against women and girls and gender equality, said when she spotted the video channel: "It lit a flame inside of me that just struck me so immediately that this is exactly the kind of thing that is likely to happen when you don't invest in proper trust and safety before you launch products."

Professor McGlynn stressed that Google and other AI developers must implement stronger safeguards before releasing their tools and address the issues as they come, condemning the industry's rush to produce technology.

She told The Independent: “Google says that this sort of material does not fall within their terms and conditions. They supposedly don't allow material with graphic violence and sexual violence, etc, yet this was able to be produced.