Fight against nonconsensual sexual deepfakes is slowly getting somewhere

Public concern over the issue exploded earlier this year when people used generative AI tools to create explicit content featuring Taylor Swift. — The New York Times

People worry a lot about the various flavours of havoc that AI might wreak in the future, but one of the technology’s here-and-now problems is that of deepfakes, in particular those that depict actual women and girls in sexualised ways without their consent.

Public concern over the issue exploded earlier this year when people used generative AI tools to create explicit content featuring Taylor Swift. This kind of thing wasn’t really new – faked pornographic images have been a problem ever since Photoshop became a thing – but AI apps can make it particularly easy to do, and Swift’s unusually high profile ensured widespread consciousness.