Apps and websites that use artificial intelligence to undress women in photos are soaring in popularity, according to researchers.
In September alone, 24 million people visited undressing websites, according to the social network analysis company Graphika.
Many of these undressing, or “nudify,” services use popular social networks for marketing, according to Graphika. For instance, since the beginning of this year, the number of links advertising undressing apps increased more than 2,400% on social media, including on X and Reddit, the researchers said. The services use AI to recreate an image so that the person is nude. Many of the services only work on women.
These apps are part of a worrying trend of non-consensual pornography being developed and distributed because of advances in artificial intelligence — a type of fabricated media known as deepfake pornography. Its proliferation runs into serious legal and ethical hurdles, as the images are often taken from social media and distributed without the consent, control or knowledge of the subject.
I’ve made this comment other places, I’ll make it here. This tech changes much less than people think. If anything, this will protect people from leaking of nudes because people will assume it’s probably fake.
All this is is an advanced form of fantasy that has existed ever since photoshop has existed. And importantly, we will deal with these nude photos the exact same way we deal with real nudes.
Meaning, if you catch people distributing fake photos of their classmates, the punishment should be the same as if they were real. And they need to be severe.
The reason this is a problem and I’m concerned for young women is that protections for sexual harassment online have already been abysmal. So this will make things worse and since we don’t protect women very well in the US, I expect major issues. Basically, the problems aren’t new, but our lack of action will make this awful. Treated correctly, this is a non-issue and these photos should be kept in private.