From Medium to Real-Life Discussions
Are AI-Generated Nudes a Problem of Culture or Legislation?
AI, The Law, Women
Except you’re not on social media, you must have heard that AI-generated nude photos of global superstar, Taylor Swift were released on X, in January. And, for the first time, America’s White House acknowledged the problem AI manipulation poses, stating “There should be legislation, obviously, to deal with this issue.” But, there isn’t strict Federal legislation protecting women and girls (mostly the victims) against this right now in the United States, and around the world.
What are AI-generated deep fakes?
Deepfakes use AI to generate completely new video or audio, with the end goal of portraying something that didn’t actually occur in reality. The term “deep fake” comes from the underlying technology — deep learning algorithms — which teach themselves to solve problems with large sets of data and can be used to create fake content of real people. — Business Insider
According to Wikipedia, Deepfakes have garnered widespread attention for their potential use in creating child sexual abuse material, celebrity pornographic videos, revenge porn, fake news, hoaxes, bullying, and financial fraud. The spreading of disinformation and hate speech through deepfakes has the potential to undermine core functions and norms of democratic systems by interfering with people’s ability to participate in decisions that affect them, determine collective agendas, and express political will through informed decision-making.
Women have been the worst hit since AI deep fakes became more mainstream, and I wrote about all the stats in the article — No One Listened Until It Happened to Taylor Swift Too.
As expected, I had a very interesting comment section from which I also had detailed conversations with my readers about who is to blame for the popularization of AI deep fakes. Let’s take a brief look at some of the responses.
This is just the beginning and it’s going to get a lot worse. Deep fake, audio and better-quality videos are on the way. Unfortunately, the heavy hand of the law is not going to stop it. I have been in tech for 2 decades and I honestly think as a society we are not ready for AI and the government should stop it at its root. But that is just wishful thinking and it’s not going to happen. I also see this degeneracy as a symptom of a sick society. Perhaps we should pay more attention to our culture and bring people together. The anger and aggression between different groups and in this case the genders are amplified with every new technological tool. — Aslan (The lion in the wardrobe)
…I didn’t know any of this was happening and that people would use AI for such grotesque things, yet it unfortunately doesn’t really surprise me either. There are some fundamental issues with our society as a whole… — The Gambit
Aslan thinks it is more a “culture” problem, and where we put our priorities as a society more than anything else. According to Aslan, since society now dwells more on aggression towards one another, any technological tool is seen as just another weapon to attack. The Gambit agrees.
Nina Jankowicz, author of “How to Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment, and How to Fight Back,” also states that these AI models are trained on women’s bodies. So even if you feed a male image into the kind of face-swap tools that exist, it’s not going to work as well, because they have been created by men for either demeaning women or pleasuring themselves. She discusses this as a “culture” problem too, the degeneration of society as one against the other.
AI in the wrong hands will only cause damage. Creating some laws that prevent the misuse of AI can be a solution. Difficult but not impossible…We all are morally aware of what “misuse” is. All we need is a strong voice, so to keep talking and spreading awareness is what we need to do. — Mango Saini
Mango agrees that creating laws to forestall the manipulation of AI to harm particular groups in society is difficult but doable, and we need to keep talking about it until legislation is put in place.
In light of how enlightening my research about AI deep fakes was, and how much more enlightening my conversations with my readers were, I decided to bring it into a real-life conversation. I believe that as writers, much more than bringing attention to issues and getting people talking, we are also responsible for making sure these issues stay front and center in people’s minds by continuing to write about them until change occurs.
With the platform of my education non-profit, Change A Child Community Initiative, I brought together a tech expert and a tech lawyer to discuss where we are right now in terms of legislation protecting against AI manipulation to cause harm and commit criminal offenses, and where we envisage we’ll be in the coming years.
February 20 is commemorated as the World Day of Social Justice, and we were deliberate about choosing this date because of this year’s theme — Social justice at the center of international, national, and regional policy agendas.
The takeaways from this event included:
- There are currently no laws in Nigeria to forestall the manipulation of AI against any group of society, and this is not even considered a problem just yet due to inadequate digital literacy.
- The law is needed as a means to ensure there are adequate reparations for victims of AI manipulation. The Taylor Swift issue, even with how many media rounds it got has not been pursued legally because there are no laws that ensure victims at least get any kind of compensation for the emotional and psychological trauma.
- The law is not adequate to combat the problem of AI, because of how real the creations of AI models are becoming, digital literacy is most important at this time so that more people in the world do not take everything they see at face value. Everyone should be sufficiently digitally aware to always #Questioneveryphoto.
- This is the worst AI can ever be, as it will only get better and further blur the lines between real and AI-generated as the years roll by. We should prepare our minds for this
- The creators of these AI models should be held responsible for watermarking every content made with their tool so that it is clearly stated as AI-generated.
In summary, our world is indeed witnessing an uptick in aggression and hate, the more there is no control over how people use the devices available to them whether they are guns, information, social media, and artificial intelligence models. However little the solution of the law is, it is necessary as a combatant to dissuade from the use of these as weapons against different groups of society, as well as a form of reparation for victims.
