I tend to lean more towards the problem being distribution rather than creation, so I’m curious about your opinion on this: Is there a difference between me imaging a sexual act with someone without their consent vs writing/drawing/deepfaking it?
In my opinion absolutely. Whatever happens in your head stays in your head and doesn’t affect the other person unless you take active steps for that to happen. Images or videos on the other hand can not only be distributed far easier, even accidentally, but also have a way higher chance of affecting people’s lives (how can you disprove you didn’t take nude photos of yourself for example? let alone make people believe it). They can lead to loss of reputation, harassment, bullying and serious mental issues for the victims (trust issues, anxiety, depression, self-harm) - imagination can’t really do that on its own.
Perhaps distribution is the real problem but easy access to tools that can create convincing results quickly and without effort makes said distribution way more probable.
I still think the act itself is pretty gross but yeah, the harm is the important part for me - and I don’t mean that just in case of sexual images. It’s also a problem in terms of content created to affect people’s reputation in other ways or influence the sociopolitical situation (something that’s already happening around the world).
The harmful potential of generative AI is on a completely different scale than photoshopped images already mentioned in this thread by others. That doesn’t mean genAI can’t be used in fun and interesting ways but stuff like what’s described in the linked article is a big no no for me.
I tend to lean more towards the problem being distribution rather than creation, so I’m curious about your opinion on this: Is there a difference between me imaging a sexual act with someone without their consent vs writing/drawing/deepfaking it?
In my opinion absolutely. Whatever happens in your head stays in your head and doesn’t affect the other person unless you take active steps for that to happen. Images or videos on the other hand can not only be distributed far easier, even accidentally, but also have a way higher chance of affecting people’s lives (how can you disprove you didn’t take nude photos of yourself for example? let alone make people believe it). They can lead to loss of reputation, harassment, bullying and serious mental issues for the victims (trust issues, anxiety, depression, self-harm) - imagination can’t really do that on its own.
Perhaps distribution is the real problem but easy access to tools that can create convincing results quickly and without effort makes said distribution way more probable.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. It sounds like it’s the potential for harm/damage rather than the act itself that makes it an issue for you?
I still think the act itself is pretty gross but yeah, the harm is the important part for me - and I don’t mean that just in case of sexual images. It’s also a problem in terms of content created to affect people’s reputation in other ways or influence the sociopolitical situation (something that’s already happening around the world).
The harmful potential of generative AI is on a completely different scale than photoshopped images already mentioned in this thread by others. That doesn’t mean genAI can’t be used in fun and interesting ways but stuff like what’s described in the linked article is a big no no for me.