While some accounts have been suspended, many posts remain live.
Sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift have been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) over the last day in the latest example of the proliferation of AI-generated fake pornography and the challenge of stopping it from spreading.
X’s policies regarding synthetic and manipulated media and nonconsensual nudity both explicitly ban this kind of content from being hosted on the platform.
so in twenty years this comment will be "we only ai generated like respectable men" under an article about the formerly TwitterXFriendcorp LinkedIn For Friends headquarters being invaded by naked Taylor swift robots
Wow this is going to be interesting from multiple fronts for me especially.
First, I'm a huge swiftie - and Taylor is probably not going to take this lightly. Who she's going to target will be a more interesting question. (Shameless plug for !taylorswift@poptalk.scrubbles.tech if you want to join our small community)
Second, as a nerd who has dabbled with generated art - thank you trolls for ruining it for all of us. This is just going to beg for regulations that is going to ruin the generative AI world - as if we didn't have enough regulations barreling towards the area with copyright issues.
Third, as someone who hates Musk - I hope everything focuses on him and the platform formerly known as Twitter.
I have an honest question and would like to hear your (and others, of course) opinion:
I get the anger at the models that exist today. DallE, Midjourney and others were trained on millions of images scraped without consent. That itself is legally ambiguous, and will be interesting how courts rule on it (who am I kidding, they'll go with the corporations).
More importantly though, some of it (and increasingly more, as the controversy reached mainstream) was explicitly disallowed by the author to be used as training data. While I don't think stealing is the right term here, it is without question unethical and should not be tolerated. While I don't feel as strongly about this as many others do, maybe because I'm not reliant on earning money from my art, I fully agree that this is scummy and should be outlawed.
What I don't understand is how many people condemn all of generative AI. For me the issue seems to be one of consent and compensation, and ultimately of capitalism.
Would you be okay with generative AI whose training data was vetted to be acquired consentually?
In doesn't matter. Sophisticated models are open-source and have already been forked and archived beyond all conceivable hope of regulation. There's no going back.
You can't regulate something that takes desktop levels of power to make. What are you going to do? Arrest people in China, Russia NK, etc.? Societal change is needed, not regulation.
Just look at Facebook, yesterday I was spammed by sites with AI fakes of Scarlett Johansson, reported them all, this morning Billie Eilish with biiiig boobs in suggestive positions, reported, now I'm being bombarded by Alexandra Daddario obvious fakes, it's getting ridiculous
It's not that at all. I keep tabs on several far-flung friends and relatives on FB. Zero spam. TBF, I make it a point to click on ads for things I don't need but don't mind seeing (rockets, 3D printers, vocal jazz stuff). Of course, I'm on IPv4 with my whole household, so if I search for hiking shoes, everyone in the house gets FB ads for hiking shoes. I got a bunch of ads for Merino Wool outerwear in mid December. My wife was kind enough to get me several base layers for Christmas. There is no good and bad, just poor internet management and hygiene (IMHO).
Sharks have flooded Shark Infested Waters with shark asshole stink but this time the asshole stink is AI generated and Taylor Swift has a billion dollars for lawyers.
The obvious solution on X's side is to ID everyone that wants to post anything. And remember that the obvious solution doesn't have to be the best solution, a good solution or, even, a real solution at all.
I’m against deepfaking others without their consent, but all this coverage has me wondering what the big deal is. Things like this have always existed, what is the difference this time?
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One of the most prominent examples on X attracted more than 45 million views, 24,000 reposts, and hundreds of thousands of likes and bookmarks before the verified user who shared the images had their account suspended for violating platform policy.
In some regions, the term “Taylor Swift AI” became featured as a trending topic, promoting the images to wider audiences.
X’s policies regarding synthetic and manipulated media and nonconsensual nudity both explicitly ban this kind of content from being hosted on the platform.
In response, fans have responded by flooding hashtags used to circulate the images with messages that instead promote real clips of Swift performing to hide the explicit fakes.
The responsibility of preventing fake images from spreading often falls to social platforms — something that can be difficult to do under the best of circumstances and even harder for a company like X that has hollowed out its moderation capabilities.
The company is currently being investigated by the EU regarding claims that it’s being used to “disseminate illegal content and disinformation” and is reportedly being questioned regarding its crisis protocols after misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war was found being promoted across the platform.