The Disturbing Rise of Deepfake Celebrity Porn

Deepfake Porn: How AI is Weaponizing Celebrity Nudes

A new report reveals an alarming boom in online deepfake porn targeting celebrities, as advancing artificial intelligence makes creating fake explicit imagery faster and easier than ever before.

Deepfakes - realistically manipulated video or images - have become increasingly prevalent online in recent years. But while public attention has focused on their potential to spread political misinformation, this technology is also being weaponized in far more insidious ways.

A report shared exclusively with our newsletter has blown the lid on a twisted world of deepfake porn forums, where users freely exchange tools and advice on generating AI-powered fake nude imagery. And their victims are often female celebrities like Taylor Swift, Natalie Portman and Emma Watson.

These forums have seen an explosion in activity over the past year. One platform called "Mr DeepFakes" attracts 17 million visitors monthly. Overall, forums focused on deepfake celebrity porn have doubled in traffic since 2022. But this is not simply a remake of vintage celebrity photo leaks. This new breed of deepfake smut is far more accessible, dangerous and difficult to combat.

How Deepfake Porn is Made

Traditionally, creating a deepfake porn video was a laborious process requiring advanced photoshop skills. The creator would meticulously stitch together fragments of existing photos and videos into new fake imagery.

But thanks to leaps in AI, deepfake production has become automated. Now amateurs can simply feed a single SFW headshot into a deepfake bot, and get back a trove of doctored nudes. Some bots even allow clothing removal with a single click.

The latest AI models have demolished the barriers to generating fake porn. No longer does this require technical expertise or painstaking effort. As one deepfake forum user wrote, "Finally there is a simple way to remove clothes from any photo."

The Impacts on Victims

For female celebrities, the rise in deepfake technology adds a disturbing new dimension to existing problems like photo leaks and upskirting. Stars like Emma Watson have already faced major deepfake porn scandals without consenting to any of it.

As deepfakes make objectification and abuse easier than ever, this puts women under constant threat of having their images violated online. Even private individuals are being targeted, with individuals seeing a 400% increase in deepfake nudes made without consent. Essentially, no woman is safe from these intrusive new forms of image-based sexual abuse.

The motives driving this trend are not just sexual gratification, but the desire to demean and humiliate women. As one critic noted, deepfake porn relies entirely on the absence of consent, representing "a complete indictment of the entire system".

A Thriving Deepfake Porn Industry

Disturbingly, deepfake porn has fast become a lucrative business. ActiveFence researchers found an entire commercial ecosystem thriving around nonconsensual fake porn. Popular sites are raking in big profits from subscriptions, usage fees and “fast pass” options.

One major platform called MrDeepFakes has 17 million monthly views, and links out to a sister site Fan-Topia for users to purchase full-length deepfake videos. Some users even pay up to $560 for large batches of custom deepfake imagery.

With users willing to pay top dollar for AI-generated nudes, deepfake porn has become a rapidly growing tech sector in its own right. Developers compete to create the most convincing celebrity deepfake bots and charge premium rates to subscribers.

Easy Accessibility of Deepfake Tools

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this boom is that deepfake software is now abundantly available for free online. While major AI companies like OpenAI have implemented ethical safeguards in their models, other startups chose to make their codes totally open source.

This allowed amateur coders to modify models like Stable Diffusion by stripping out abuse protections. Now pre-trained models for generating deepfake nudes proliferate on the open web. GitHub repositories offer user-friendly applications to produce AI porn at the click of a button.

On forums, users openly share custom model codes, detailed tutorials and image datasets for training deepfake bots. Some forums even host competitions to develop the most realistic pornography of female stars.

With free deepfake tools circulating widely online, this technology is now in the hands of countless bad actors. Moderating or restricting access has become nearly impossible.

The Need for Legal Solutions

The rise of deepfake porn represents a technical and ethical failure across the AI industry, one that disproportionately victimizes women. But cracking down on these communities requires updating laws that predate these technologies.

Currently, deepfake porn falls into a legal gray area in most US states. While laws prohibit sharing intimate imagery without consent, this does not always encompass synthetic media. So far, only four states have expressly banned nonconsensual deepfakes.

A federal bill called the Preventing Deepfakes Act was introduced in 2022 to tackle this issue. But over a year later, it still has not passed Congress. Writing robust legislation to cover evolving digital harms takes time - but that lag has allowed deepfake porn to flourish unchecked.

Until enforceable laws catch up, tech platforms have become judge and jury in dealing with nonconsensual deepfakes. Though sites like Reddit and Pornhub have banned this content, regulators need to compel proactive moderation industry-wide.

As synthetic media becomes more advanced, the law cannot continue to sit idle. Impacted women deserve the same protections whether photos are real or AI-generated. To curb this unethical use of technology, society needs clear legal boundaries and stiff penalties for violations.

The Only Ethical Path Forward

Ultimately, stemming the tide of deepfake abuse will require a long-term shift in how AI systems are built and governed.

Developers must prioritize ethical design and consent-based frameworks. Companies should proactively consult experts on tech harms before open-sourcing models. Regulators need adequate staffing and resources to provide proper oversight.

And users of generative AI bear responsibility too - to carefully assess risks, refrain from misuse, and speak out when they encounter harmful applications.

The boom in deepfake pornography reveals how easily new innovations can be weaponized, if not developed thoughtfully and conscientiously from the start. There are no quick fixes to repair the complex dynamics that engender online abuse.

But with care, wisdom and honest discourse, perhaps we can build an internet where no one has to fear the nightmarish loss of control inflicted by deepfake porn. The only path forward is one guided by justice, empowerment and the primacy of consent above all else.