Porn site uses deepfakes method to display client's face on actors

The pornographic company Naughty America announced this week a new service. The proposal is to add the client's face about an actor or actress in pornographic films. This is only possible through artificial intelligence. It's a way to make the customer experience more immersive, seeing yourself in the scene. Nonetheless, this technology is directly linked to the growing phenomenon of deepfakes.

The porn market is focusing on personalization

“We see customization and personalization as the future,” comments Naughty America CEO, Andreas Hronopoulos em interview with Variety. For the process, it is necessary to send several photos and videos of yourself, including different facial expressions. The remaining work is done by artificial intelligence. It is also possible to change the background of scenes, putting, for example, a beach instead of a motel room. The company demonstrated these effects in two videos (link contains pornography).

However, the process used by Naughty America is the same to generate the deepfakes. This new category of lies is characterized by using software to modify videos and deceive the public.

Modifying faces shouldn't be a commodity

Researchers at the University of Washington managed, through IA, identify gestural and oral characteristics of Barack Obama. With this, it was possible to create near-perfect simulations of things that the former president of the United States never said.

What is causing concern is the ease of access to tools like the one shown. These tools are open source, meaning anyone can use them. Still, Naughty America will charge a lot for their service. The amount varies: hundreds of dollars for simple edits and over a thousand dollars for complicated edits.

According to Naughty America, the actors who will “borrow” the body will have consent to the modifications. However, other problems can arise. How do you know if the photos and videos sent by customers are also consented?

There is a clear risk of someone else's face being wrapped in a porn movie to spread across the internet. Last year we had the case of a pornographic video in which the actress had the face of the Gal Godot (Wonder Woman at the movies).

With the popularization and improvement of these technologies, there is an even greater risk than that of revenge porn, which is already serious. Videos of deepffake they can be used for political manipulation and cause irreversible consequences, such as wars.

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Deepfakes must be fought and not naturalized

For Naughty America the "big lies” are a natural thing; “It’s just editing,” says Hronopoulos to FastCompany. For the CEO of Naughty America, “people have been editing each other's faces in photos since the beginning of the internet”. He ends: “Deepfakes don't hurt people, people using deepfakes hurt people”.

It is necessary to understand how problematic this topic can be. You can't just launch a tool that produces deepfakes and refuse blame for the consequences. It's not just "people using deepfakes hurt people", it should be understood that there are influence issues behind it.

Influences can be either social (spreading lies about someone you don't like), economic (creating a service to profit from lies) or political (putting, literally, words into the mouths of enemies). It is pertinent that there is greater debate in the media about what is fake and how to combat these new emerging sub-categories.

Source: The Verge.