In 2023, more deepfake abuse videos were shared than in every other year in history combined, according to an analysis by independent researcher Genevieve Oh. What used to take skillful, tech-savvy experts hours to Photoshop can now be whipped up at a moment’s notice with the help of an app. Some deepfake websites even offer tutorials on how to create AI pornography.
What happens if we don’t get this under control? It will further blur the lines between what’s real and what’s not — as politics become more and more polarized. What will happen when voters can’t separate truth from lies? And what are the stakes? As we get closer to the presidential election, democracy itself could be at risk. And, as Ocasio-Cortez points out in our conversation, it’s about much more than imaginary images.
“It’s so important to me that people understand that this is not just a form of interpersonal violence, it’s not just about the harm that’s done to the victim,” she says about nonconsensual deepfake porn. She puts down her spoon and leans forward. “Because this technology threatens to do it at scale — this is about class subjugation. It’s a subjugation of entire people. And then when you do intersect that with abortion, when you do intersect that with debates over bodily autonomy, when you are able to actively subjugate all women in society on a scale of millions, at once digitally, it’s a direct connection [with] taking their rights away.”
alright you have a point, although AI made this process infinetly simpler. if you have a remotely sufficient computer and some knowledge on how to operate the tools, you can do that in a matter of a few hours of actual work.
im surprised there isnt more deepfakes.
It’s usually quite a hassle to set those tools up, especially if you don’t have much technical knowledge. A lot of the more resource heavy tasks are also not really possible on a home computer and require big servers with multiple GPUs and absurd amounts of VRAM, or very specific APUs but those are still very early. The majority of what you can do at home is typically limited to generating pictures, and even there it takes quite a bit of time if you want some really high quality stuff. For a lot of more complex tasks you’re simply resource limited. And in regards to time I’m just talking for the actual generation process. Getting good results, and to the point of getting them, is another lengthy process that many people underestimate. It’s not a magic button because those LLMs are pretty damn stupid actually.