I wanted to talk about this deepfake porn phenomenon. If you haven't
heard, there's this app/AI (that's a few months old since it went
viral) that can swap faces between people in photos and videos. It
adjusts and blurs the image until it can't tell the difference between
the old face and the new face. It's been used to create fake porn
videos of celebrities.
What I wanted to talk about is the stupid interpretation that this
constitutes unconsenting porn (or something like that, basically a
statute for revenge porn leaks). But the thing is, these videos 1)
mostly don't do a great job at faceswapping (some do) and 2) are
transformative user creations. Nobody is stupid enough to believe that
Taylor Swift is acting in a porn movie (okay, maybe some are). But to
me it's no different legally from some of those really lame fake
celebrity images where they crudely Photoshop a celeb's head/face onto
a nude model's body, yet only outrage occurred when these FakeApp
videos came out.
By outrage, I mean a subreddit has been banned, sites are being shut
down, Pornhub is deleting all deepfake videos. It's seemingly more
egregious than the actual leaked photos from the Fappening by how hard
they're scrubbing sites. I had one favorited and it was taken down.
What are your thoughts on the legality of porn deepfakes and in what
ways do you think deepfakes could be used in legitimate activities?