Taylor Swift is the latest celebrity to be targeted by artificial intelligence porn after a series of AI generated sexually explicit images of the singer circulated on X.
These non-consensual images quickly spread to different platforms such as Meta-owned Facebook and Reddit, with one of the images even being viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended, according to the New York Times.
However, it took more than 17 hours for the platform to remove the post and suspend the account.
In some locations, the term ‘Taylor Swift AI’ started trending, leading to the images being circulated even more widely.
The images were not only non-consensual and fake, but disturbingly graphic as well, with a number of the images depicting Swift being assaulted.
Despite the efforts of Swift’s fan base, who reported the accounts who were sharing the deep fake images, some of the images are still circulating and many more new ones have emerged.
A 2019 report from AI firm DeepTrace Labs found that an overwhelming 96% of deep fake pornography involve female subjects.
Considering that the origin of deep fakes was a Reddit forum made for sharing photoshopped images of female celebrity faces on porn star bodies, it’s not surprising that female celebrities remain the most vulnerable to AI generated porn.
Yet, women who aren’t famous, remain just as vulnerable.
Whether it’s teenage boys making AI-porn images from the Instagram’s of girls they go to school with or someone who has simply stumbled across a social media of a woman they like the look of, no woman is safe from the power of these technologies, and the men using them.
The fact that these images are fake doesn’t negate the impact of them. Depicting a woman in a sexually explicit way without her consent is a deep violation of someone’s rights and privacy.
AI pornography blurs the lines between reality and fiction in order to humiliate and degrade the women subject to them.
The images of Swift have prompted calls for better legislation around deep fake images—but the question around how long it will take to get them remains.
The technology is developing at a faster pace than we can contain it, leaving women in a uniquely vulnerable position.
