You have probably heard how artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed or is currently impacting many industries from financial services to healthcare. You might not have realised how it’s changing adult entertainment and the porn industry as well. As in other sectors, the changes brought by AI can help improve the user experience and business, but there are also some disturbing ways it can be abused.

Heighten personalization

Just as Netflix can recommend flicks based on what you watched previously or Amazon can suggest products to purchase based on your browsing and buying history using artificial intelligence, AI can similarly help tag porn films. Pornhub, xHamster, and YouPorn are all working on perfecting their artificial intelligence systems to be better at recommending films to users of their platform.

The AI algorithms view thousands of films and images of performers to ultimately be able to tag films where those stars perform. The users on the site are giving the opportunity to provide feedback to the algorithm to indicate if the tagging was accurate. This user feedback allows the AI algorithm to get better over time.

Once the system completes the sorting of the films by performer, genre and theme, it’s expected to ultimately tag films for additional characteristics a particular user might be interested in such as positions, locations, hair colour, etc.

AI helped develop a sex toy

Another way artificial intelligence has been used in adult entertainment is the development of an oral sex simulator. VIECI was the company that created the Autoblow AI to offer men a high-tech sex toy (feeling the industry had focused more on giving women high-quality sex toys than men). They claim the Autoblow AI is the “first-ever device that uses artificial intelligence to replicate human sexual techniques.”

To achieve this, the data scientists used six days (8,333 minutes) of pornographic footage to train the AI algorithm regarding how to replicate oral sex. They ran the video at 50% speed to allow the computer to capture 30 screenshots of video per second and document the position of the mouth. This work discovered the 16 “most-used mouth locations” used in the films. According to the company, the result of the AI’s work is an experience that’s as real as possible.

Fake porn and misrepresentations

Along with benefits to the industry, there are a number of ways artificial intelligence can be used in adult entertainment to mispresent or take advantage of the likenesses of individuals who did not consent to the representation.

When a video surfaced that applied actress Gal Gadot’s face (Wonder Woman in the most recent film version) onto a video where the woman was having sex with her stepbrother, it showed how easily individuals—and their likenesses—can be used without permission and to how someone doing or saying something they never did. While it was reasonably easy to spot issues that indicated it was a doctored video, it was believable at a glance and shows just how easy and how close we are to actually having people create very realistic videos that could harm reputations and careers.

This is an example of deepfakes—porn that features celebrities’ faces photoshopped automatically using AI on bodies that are part of porn films. Scarlett Johansson, Taylor Swift, and Maisie Williams have all been victims. Right now, celebrities are the most vulnerable to this attack since there are a large number of publicly available images and videos that AI algorithms can use to learn and create more realistic images.

Another programmer created an app called DeepNude that used artificial intelligence to alter images of fully clothed women to make them appear naked. The app caused such outrage the anonymous programmer deleted it just days after it went live. The app was free, easy to use, and put every woman at risk for being taken advantage of by these fake images.

Facebook to monitor for “revenge porn”

DeepNude, and similar tools, show just how easy “revenge porn” can be created and circulated. In response, Facebook is employing artificial intelligence to find, and flag nonconsensually shared intimate images. This is a positive move forward by Facebook who previously required victims of revenge porn to report inappropriate images or send their intimate images to the company before content moderators would take action to remove images. AI can find and flag pictures and then forward them on to humans for further review. The AI technology will be used across Facebook and Instagram and has been trained to identify “nearly nude” images (i.e, lingerie shot) and derogatory text.