We created a website to work as a form of activism as a way of informing people about how artificial intelligence, especially deepfaking, influences the pornography industry. We chose this topic after a particular case in Korea gained traction on social media and opened our eyes to how dangerous this could be to us as young women on the internet. Our website will have five tabs exploring different aspects of the issue: histories of porn and modernization, What is deepfaking/artificial intelligence, specific cases of deepfaking in porn, ethical implications of porn, and how deepfaking affects the ethics of porn.

Pornography was implemented into the Oxford Dictionary in 1857; however, after and before the French Revolution, pornography has been present in the French and Italian communities. The term pornography didn’t count as a category of literary representation until the early 19th century. From the analyzed articles, it’s essential to consider the period and the social and political conditions conferred in it. For instance, the Enlightenment and the invention and popularity of print film and the novel exponentially increased the interest in pornographic material. The Enlightenment brought about unique societal and political thoughts and a sexual Enlightenment. The historian Lynn Hunt describes the definition of pornography best as she states that it’s “the explicit depiction of sexual organs and sexual practices to arouse sexual feelings” (10). Based on the period and the context in the pornographic readings, there was a strong link between pornography and democracy/libertinism, which quickly led to pornography being a criticism against politics. It’s important not to discount the impact of the social, political, and cultural effects that pornographic writing has had on many societies, as that accounts for part of its history.

The feminist view on the ethics of porn can be divided generally into three branches: 1. Oppose all forms of porn as means of objectification, breeding violence against and silencing women. 2. Reject current forms of porn (directed and scripted by men) but sees potential in queer/women lead content. 3. Accept all forms of porn as freedom of expression and sexual liberation for women. We will evaluate these opinions from the perspectives of commentators/scholars, actresses, and directors. We should note that there is a massive discrepancy and hierarchy within the industry, and the experiences of actresses/actors vary greatly. Specifically about race, we’ll focus our attention on a genre of porn called interracial/reverse-interracial. We’ll examine porn in different countries – specifically juxtaposing the West to the East – and explain the cultural cause behind this contrast.

What was once a popular science fiction trope has now become a horrifying reality with the rise of deepfakes and artificial intelligence (AI) used to create fake digital content made to appear genuine and, most importantly, humanistic. We should start by explaining the differences between AI and deepfakes. Artificial intelligence, otherwise known as AI, is a type of computer science that allows machines to learn experiences and adapt to new software overtime to complete tasks that resemble human abilities but do not require using a human to execute them. Deepfakes, on the other hand, build upon AI but also incorporate a special kind of machine learning called “deep” learning, which takes information and manipulates it into reproducing fake, highly realistic images or videos. Although deepfake has been beneficial in some cases, such as David Beckham’s “Malaria Must Die” campaign, to educate the public on the disease, deepfake was used to show Beckham speaking nine different languages. However, in most cases, it crosses several ethical boundaries by taking people’s private information without consent and using it against them. As a result, these technologies have led to the development of non-consensual synthetic pornography.

The central part of how deepfaking affects ethics is that it is done nonconsensually, 96% as of 2019. Although there is pornography that is released without people’s consent/ filmed with actors that are unconsenting, many porn actors choose to do it, whereas in deep faking, it removes the choice. This creates something that is defined as “virtual sexual assault,” where a person is having sex on the internet without knowing it. It also creates legal challenges as the system does not have adequate precedents for the technology.

With the increasing demand and accessibility of AI, creating deepfake pornography has become significantly easier and faster. Cases of digital sex crimes are surfacing globally, and Korea has drawn particular attention. A specific Telegram group chat, consisting of at least 70 rooms, each linked to different schools–from middle to college level– allows people to share personal information and pictures of acquaintances, friends, and family to generate deepfakes, referred to as “mutual acquaintances insulting.” Similarly, in the U.S., a man was recently sentenced to six months in jail for producing and distributing deepfake pornography. German authorities are using this technology to catch predators. Like this, there are many different kinds of uses in deepfake pornography. Some analyses of these crimes discuss the ethical and legal complexities surrounding deepfake technology, advocating for its classification as unprotected speech under the First Amendment to better protect victims.