China’s deepfake celebrity porn culture stirs debate about artificial intelligence use

The widespread use of artificial intelligence to create deepfake celebrity porn videos for Chinese internet users has raised fresh questions about the use and abuse of the technology.

While China’s strict internet controls should, in theory, prevent people from accessing pornographic content, an investigation by The Beijing News published on Thursday uncovered numerous platforms where people were selling services that offered to swap the faces of celebrities, or members of the public, onto images of porn stars for less than US$1.