Honestly I think this whole conversation is stupid.
It’s always been possible to photoshop a celebrity’s face onto a pornstar’s naked body. That’s been a thing for decades.
So you talk about guardrails to prevent AI from doing this, and you use the word ‘safety’- I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
To me, AI ‘safety’ is not accidentally creating an AI that will find a bunch of 0day exploits and use them to destroy the Internet. Making AI not spit out spicy pics has nothing to do with ‘safety’.
So if an AI model can spit out a naked pic of someone, honestly, I really don’t care. It’s shitty for sure, but if the big companies block it (which they probably can’t) some little operator will spring up and fill the gap.
To survive ai art, we must get past nudity. We must let go that realistic art represents a reality, and that such a reality is immoral or illegal. It’s not reality, even if loosely based on reality, and fiction should be free from this bullshit.
Instead of fighting against AI nudes, I think we should just culturally decide all nudes are AI. Women shouldn’t be publicly embarrassed or blackmailed by nude pictures, instead the reaction should be directed at the person sharing them. They’re the ones doing something wrong, regardless of if the pictures are real or not
With LLM’s, safety concerns means they can’t deliver what they promised. It’s as simple as that.
There are no regulation concerns in the US, outside of CSAM and even then hardly. The feds and courts are preventing states from doing anything, or they will soon if a state is poised to do something.
There are no guardrails that will work with AI, full stop. They keep talking about that in the hopes of avoiding regulation but the truth is that the models and the stolen data they’re trained on will keep popping up nudes as long as that was in the training data. So you either ban GenAI at scale (great for humanity but oops the economy) or you ban the use of training on data that includes nudes.
But the issue is not a better version of a photoshop of “some celebrity”, kids are doing this to each other because it’s so easy to do. Do you want to explain to a thirteen year old how it’s not a big deal if someone is passing around realistic nudes of them that were AI-generated? Will people always be dicks to each other? Of course, but that doesn’t mean as a society we should allow it to be so readily available that kids who aren’t even old enough to drive should have one-click access to it.
Personally I’d prefer if every data center disappeared tomorrow and AI companies were held liable for the theft they’ve orchestrated and the harm they’ve done. Short of that though, something needs to be done and it’s likely going to have to be regulations on the training data because their “guardrails” are shit and always will be. This isn’t inevitable and the only way to stop it is to start telling the AI companies, “No, you can’t do that.” If some clanker wanker in his parents basement wants to make an AI girlfriend, that’s on him.
Do you want to explain to a thirteen year old how it’s not a big deal if someone is passing around realistic nudes of them that were AI-generated?
No of course not. But how’s that different than when one of her classmates takes Photoshop 101? What do you tell the 13yo whose face is photochopped onto a porn star? Same thing.
I’m 100% with you that it sucks, and I’m not convinced generative AI has done much of anything useful to outweigh its societal and resource costs.
You could require all cloud AI to embed tracking data in each image, so when little Johnny nudify’s his classmate we can trace who made the image. But lots of cloud AI companies are outside the USA. And that won’t affect local models.
I think the thing that you’re missing is a teenager is generally not going to be able to make a photoshop that’s believable, whereas they can currently generate totally believable pictures and even video using GenAI. Sure, some will realize it must be AI, but some won’t and no matter what, the theoretical 13yo is going to feel just as threatened and violated.
The problem is that no regulation is ever going to work on the endpoints, so things like age-verification are pointless and an invasion of privacy. The only thing that will work is going after the companies, their training data, and the infrastructure. There will be stuff out of the country’s jurisdiction, but we already have laws handling that type of thing, and while imperfect, they do draw a line. And yes, local models will still be a thing, but you don’t enforce against the creation, you enforce against the trafficking of such images. If some modern day teenage da Vinci painted a near-photorealistic nude of a classmate, he can do that. But the minute he shares it, it comes under existing laws in sharing such images. Why should GenAI be treated any differently?
The cat’s out of the bag at this point. Expecting the problem to be solved by controlling a centralized access point is a fool’s errand. Local models exist and, once this bubble pops, the hardware will be more accessible, maybe even on unbiquitous equipment like phones. And even absent models, there are plenty of people on the internet willing to violate local laws for an Amazon gift card.
Imagine this same problem for film photography. The solution would be all film developers are regulated and would lose their license for releasing certain kinds of photos. People will just develop their own film or fly-by-night operators will do it without a license.
Disagree strongly about all this being inevitable. And not taking a stand against mega-billion dollar companies enabling this is ridiculous, IMO.
To take your example of the photo industry, we have laws on the books against certain types of photography being either produced, in your possession, or sharing them. Why should GenAI be any different? If a server delivers you a nude image of someone without their consent and/or underaged, the company that owns that server has produced and distributed something actionable.
And sure, local models can and do exist, but hell, most people aren’t even willing to get off Windows and move to Linux - you think many folks are going to be paying for the hardware and developing/training their own local models? The same rules that keep beastiality/CP/etc (mostly) off the net can be used against them if they try and share them. And most importantly, by doing that, society says that kind of thing is not acceptable. Traffic laws aren’t enforced 100% of the time, but can you imagine what kind of hellscape it would be if we didn’t have them at all?
Sadly yes you’re right. We’re at the point where we as a society have to wrap our head around the fact that images (and even video) are no longer proof of reality.
I’ve seen a few attempts at cameras which digitally sign the image as proof of reality. That may end up being the new normal.
Honestly I think this whole conversation is stupid.
It’s always been possible to photoshop a celebrity’s face onto a pornstar’s naked body. That’s been a thing for decades.
So you talk about guardrails to prevent AI from doing this, and you use the word ‘safety’- I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
To me, AI ‘safety’ is not accidentally creating an AI that will find a bunch of 0day exploits and use them to destroy the Internet. Making AI not spit out spicy pics has nothing to do with ‘safety’.
So if an AI model can spit out a naked pic of someone, honestly, I really don’t care. It’s shitty for sure, but if the big companies block it (which they probably can’t) some little operator will spring up and fill the gap.
To survive ai art, we must get past nudity. We must let go that realistic art represents a reality, and that such a reality is immoral or illegal. It’s not reality, even if loosely based on reality, and fiction should be free from this bullshit.
This is true.
Instead of fighting against AI nudes, I think we should just culturally decide all nudes are AI. Women shouldn’t be publicly embarrassed or blackmailed by nude pictures, instead the reaction should be directed at the person sharing them. They’re the ones doing something wrong, regardless of if the pictures are real or not
safety in the context here, i am beginning to think means “safety from regulations that will affect our shareholder investments.”
rarely is anything a company does for actual human safety.
With LLM’s, safety concerns means they can’t deliver what they promised. It’s as simple as that.
There are no regulation concerns in the US, outside of CSAM and even then hardly. The feds and courts are preventing states from doing anything, or they will soon if a state is poised to do something.
In this case ‘safety’ was being pushed by the group monitoring the AI companies, perhaps to push their own relevance.
There are no guardrails that will work with AI, full stop. They keep talking about that in the hopes of avoiding regulation but the truth is that the models and the stolen data they’re trained on will keep popping up nudes as long as that was in the training data. So you either ban GenAI at scale (great for humanity but oops the economy) or you ban the use of training on data that includes nudes.
But the issue is not a better version of a photoshop of “some celebrity”, kids are doing this to each other because it’s so easy to do. Do you want to explain to a thirteen year old how it’s not a big deal if someone is passing around realistic nudes of them that were AI-generated? Will people always be dicks to each other? Of course, but that doesn’t mean as a society we should allow it to be so readily available that kids who aren’t even old enough to drive should have one-click access to it.
Personally I’d prefer if every data center disappeared tomorrow and AI companies were held liable for the theft they’ve orchestrated and the harm they’ve done. Short of that though, something needs to be done and it’s likely going to have to be regulations on the training data because their “guardrails” are shit and always will be. This isn’t inevitable and the only way to stop it is to start telling the AI companies, “No, you can’t do that.” If some clanker wanker in his parents basement wants to make an AI girlfriend, that’s on him.
No of course not. But how’s that different than when one of her classmates takes Photoshop 101? What do you tell the 13yo whose face is photochopped onto a porn star? Same thing.
I’m 100% with you that it sucks, and I’m not convinced generative AI has done much of anything useful to outweigh its societal and resource costs.
You could require all cloud AI to embed tracking data in each image, so when little Johnny nudify’s his classmate we can trace who made the image. But lots of cloud AI companies are outside the USA. And that won’t affect local models.
I think the thing that you’re missing is a teenager is generally not going to be able to make a photoshop that’s believable, whereas they can currently generate totally believable pictures and even video using GenAI. Sure, some will realize it must be AI, but some won’t and no matter what, the theoretical 13yo is going to feel just as threatened and violated.
The problem is that no regulation is ever going to work on the endpoints, so things like age-verification are pointless and an invasion of privacy. The only thing that will work is going after the companies, their training data, and the infrastructure. There will be stuff out of the country’s jurisdiction, but we already have laws handling that type of thing, and while imperfect, they do draw a line. And yes, local models will still be a thing, but you don’t enforce against the creation, you enforce against the trafficking of such images. If some modern day teenage da Vinci painted a near-photorealistic nude of a classmate, he can do that. But the minute he shares it, it comes under existing laws in sharing such images. Why should GenAI be treated any differently?
The cat’s out of the bag at this point. Expecting the problem to be solved by controlling a centralized access point is a fool’s errand. Local models exist and, once this bubble pops, the hardware will be more accessible, maybe even on unbiquitous equipment like phones. And even absent models, there are plenty of people on the internet willing to violate local laws for an Amazon gift card.
Imagine this same problem for film photography. The solution would be all film developers are regulated and would lose their license for releasing certain kinds of photos. People will just develop their own film or fly-by-night operators will do it without a license.
Disagree strongly about all this being inevitable. And not taking a stand against mega-billion dollar companies enabling this is ridiculous, IMO.
To take your example of the photo industry, we have laws on the books against certain types of photography being either produced, in your possession, or sharing them. Why should GenAI be any different? If a server delivers you a nude image of someone without their consent and/or underaged, the company that owns that server has produced and distributed something actionable.
And sure, local models can and do exist, but hell, most people aren’t even willing to get off Windows and move to Linux - you think many folks are going to be paying for the hardware and developing/training their own local models? The same rules that keep beastiality/CP/etc (mostly) off the net can be used against them if they try and share them. And most importantly, by doing that, society says that kind of thing is not acceptable. Traffic laws aren’t enforced 100% of the time, but can you imagine what kind of hellscape it would be if we didn’t have them at all?
Not sure where I advocated doing nothing, just that controlling it at the source will be ineffective even if it feels good to do.
Yes, creation and distribution should continue to be crimes.
Sadly yes you’re right. We’re at the point where we as a society have to wrap our head around the fact that images (and even video) are no longer proof of reality.
I’ve seen a few attempts at cameras which digitally sign the image as proof of reality. That may end up being the new normal.