The issue of porn has been a controversial one since it first became a thing in the 19th century.
Over the years, the pornography industry has grown and evolved, becoming ever more available as people moved from reading books to ogling at magazines (like Hugh Hefner's Playboy series), to buying cassette tapes.
Oftentimes, it appears that pornography rides on the backs of the biggest forms of human innovation.
This trend started with the creation of the internet in the 1960s and paved the way for porn being readily available to anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection today.
The same is happening again with A.I, right in front of your eyes—grab some popcorn:
Here's how A.I is reshaping the multi-billion-dollar porn industry.
Likely everyone has heard about how A.I is transforming healthcare, education, and almost every other field.
However, few people talk about how A.I is also transforming the landscapes of scams, terrorism, blackmail—and, of course, pornography.
One of the factors that have influenced human innovation from the onset, is the idea of dreams and fantasies.
As far back as 1896, what is regarded as the first pornographic film was released.
This film was a 7-minute French movie that featured a woman stripping and was called Coucher de la Mariée.
As expected, demand for this "first of its kind" movie led the French filmmakers to realize that people were both willing and ready to pay to watch women strip on screen.
This, many would argue, was the birth of porn.
More than a century after that, we already have companies like Bloom Chat creating A.I-based sex chatbots that allow users to have audio erotica with characters from erotic novels.
We have a Discord community named "Unstable Diffusion", created with the aim of "training A.I to get better at producing porn,".
We also have companies like VIECI that created an A.I-based "oral sex simulator" for men.
It gets even crazier when we mention the 2017 porn deepfake incident with Gal Gadot (the wonder woman actress).
According to reports, whoever made the video used A.I to apply Gadot's face onto a pre-made porn video, sparking a social media outrage.
While it might be easy to point out scenarios where A.I-based porn is harmless, incidents like these only show how easily individuals—and their likenesses—can be used without permission.
To be fair, the rise of pornography initially sparked an outrage in the 1900s and later.
According to this article from the NCJRS Virtual Library, there were initial concerns about porn having possible links to issues like rape and molestation.
However, the article also cites factors like community, the offenders themselves, and legislative characteristics as more convincing causes of these crimes.
In essence, porn might be innocent—sort of.
Porn and A.I-generated porn have had their fair share of criticism. However, what if there were some pros to this "taboo" subject?
A.I porn/erotic chatbots could present companionship and emotional support to users, without them having to deal with the physical risks of a human partner (like physical and emotional abuse, STDs, etc).
Moreover, A.I could also present specific experiences for an individual's "urges", and may even cut down rape occurrences, as counter-intuitive as it may seem.
Users can also indulge in exact and unique scenarios that they might have trouble finding in traditional adult content.
Unlike traditional reliance on actors, studios and directors, A.I-based porn can offer endless varieties of positions, outfits or even models with a single prompt.
Also, if the issue is with blackmail, cyberbullying and revenge porn, companies like Facebook are starting to fight fire with fire.
Facebook has started to use A.I to find and flag nonconsensually shared intimate images.
Overall, as bad as AI-based porn sounds, it just might turn out to be the tool that balances the scales, not just in the sex game but in general the human need for interaction.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.