“I hope they don’t actually want to see the things they’re typing in.”
Dodgy Prompts
In the early 2000s, Steven “Lightspeed” Jones operated a collection of porn websites, netting him half a million dollars a month.
Those revenues quickly started drying up with the emergence of free, ad-supported porn streaming websites like Pornhub. But as the Washington Post reports, thanks to the advent of AI porn engines, Jones has found a way to jump back into the industry.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, he’s found that his new site offering customers an easy way to generate porn images using AI gets into extremely dicey territory — which seemingly came as a shock to Jones.
“I see certain things people type in, and I just hope to God they’re trying to test the model, like we are,” he told WaPo. “I hope they don’t actually want to see the things they’re typing in.”
Porn in the Age of AI
Jones, who’s still only breaking even with his AI porn “dream girl” venture, is struggling to keep customers from generating questionable images. Despite some built-in guardrails, it’s not difficult for users to skirt around them.
According to the report, Jones’ company has a list of 1,000 terms that are blocked, including “high school.”
Instead of allowing clients to type in their own prompts, Peter Acworth, the owner of BDSM website kink.com, told WaPo that he’s going for a different approach.
“We’re not going to let [users] type in a sentence,” he said. “It’ll be a series of checkboxes, like ‘These are the things I want, and this is the type of person I want.'”
Given the chaos we’ve already seen unfold, that’s likely a wise decision. Last month, tech CEOs watched in shock as pornographic deepfakes of Taylor Swift started flooding social media feeds.
We’ve also already come across websites entirely dedicated to churning out an endless feed of graphic, chaotic, and widely varied pornographic imagery using AI.
Adult stars are also trying to leverage the tech by offering AI-powered chatbots, parading as their virtual clones online.
But given enough freedom, the technology is bound to make a mess of the porn industry.
“AI can’t replace [adult] performers, and people who say that are misunderstanding what performers do,” Heather Knox, director of adult performer management services brand Elevated X, told WaPo.
“But this technology will catch on, and it will get abusive before it gets helpful,” she added.
Despite struggling with those dubious prompts, Jones remains optimistic, telling WaPo that he believes AI-generated video, “porn’s holy grail,” will become a reality within just two years.
And given the considerable progress the technology’s made as of late, that may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.
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