Apps and websites that use artificial intelligence to undress women in photos are soaring in popularity, according to researchers.

In September alone, 24 million people visited undressing websites, according to the social network analysis company Graphika.

Many of these undressing, or “nudify,” services use popular social networks for marketing, according to Graphika. For instance, since the beginning of this year, the number of links advertising undressing apps increased more than 2,400% on social media, including on X and Reddit, the researchers said. The services use AI to recreate an image so that the person is nude. Many of the services only work on women.

These apps are part of a worrying trend of non-consensual pornography being developed and distributed because of advances in artificial intelligence — a type of fabricated media known as deepfake pornography. Its proliferation runs into serious legal and ethical hurdles, as the images are often taken from social media and distributed without the consent, control or knowledge of the subject.

  • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    This is going to be such a culture shift. Kids today are going to grow up in a world where anyone can make any image or video of any person at any time. I have no idea how this will impact sexual health and development or if really it will even be a bad thing. It could lead to more openness and freedom, kind of like growing up with the Internet did. It could also have some really harmful unexpected consequences…kinda like how growing up with the Internet did…

    • bioemerl@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      They are already doing that shit, back in 2013 it was done with something called bubbling.

      https://gizmodo.com/get-anyone-naked-with-the-pic-bubbler-iphone-app-5656093

      I remember being in high school and I remember people sharing nude images of each other on those old ass snap a picture cell phones. Or a couple of my cousins going on facebook and rating all the women 1 to 10.

      And before people were doing it was computers they were doing it with their imagination.

      Same new shit same old story, it’s all going to be fine.

    • ultranaut@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I would imagine it’s likely to empower all kinds of unhealthy and concerning behaviors. People are fucking weird and if you can use AI to create a kind of virtualized sex slave out of the publicly available data on any person you know, that could be a real problem for society.

      • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I honestly think something like that is going to be as much or more of a harm for the person making/using it. When the world is just flooded with fake images I think we’re gonna get jaded by them very quickly and it will be just another form of (really fucked up) cyberbullying.

        For the people making them the harm is more insidious. They’re likely to be doing it in secret (because weird/immoral sex stuff) and isolating themselves, and we end up in a weird Futurama Lucy Liu-Bot situation with even more social isolation and further declining mental health.

  • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    By 2030 we’ll have AR glasses with cameras, microphones, speakers, and a built in AI assistant that will digitally remove everyone’s clothing in real time.

    • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The only real options for response for a celebrity or public figure is 1) say nothing or 2) make light of it by saying something like, “I’m flattered, they made me look better than I do!”

      • daredevil@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        I’d imagine this will also be very problematic for non-celebrities from all sorts of backgrounds as well. The harassment potential is very concerning.

        • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Agreed. Just need to teach our kids that it literally isn’t the end of the world and how to deal with it.

          • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            All that’s going to do is give abusers power over others.

            What really needs to happen is for that kind of tech, and more importantly using any software, AI or not, to do such a thing, to be outlawed. It shouldn’t be protected under the first amendment.

  • guyrocket@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    This article seems to imply that this cat can go back in the bag. I’m not at all sure about that.

  • SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.de
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    7 months ago

    This will get bloody. Some western woman and teenager will running the gauntlet of harassment and embarrassment. Some will even suicide because of those fake photos. In other parts of the world, where father and brothers kill family members for shame, it might be even a bloodbath. Imagine living as a woman under a patriarchate where you get in trouble when a curl of hair is visible. Now imagine there are fake nudes about you while you are surrounded by religious fanatics who have a deep routed history of shame and family honour. Look at Mia Khalifa. Woman will die because of this and the backward archaic anachronistic worldview of some insecure weak man.

    • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      On the plus side, this will be the death knell for those sorts of extreme cultures. It’ll be impossible for them to survive and still have these kinds of hangups in a world where such mortal offences are present everywhere you look.

      It’ll be a nasty path getting there, unfortunately.

  • Fleur__@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    They’ll just make it illegal to do that lol. Realistically tho what else are we supposed to do, the technology exists. If you were dedicated enough you could already do this with Photoshop. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an example of an artist ruining someones reputation by painting them in a compromising way centuries ago

  • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Another day another puritan panic

    Yes we should ban open source and consumer gfx cards and everything else to stop the possibility that someone might have a sexual thought -in fact all humans should be blinded at birth to avoid this!

    Won’t someone think of the children!!!

  • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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    7 months ago

    This panic over fake porn is the wrong response. In fact, encourage it, make it so ubiquitous that there is always fake porn of everyone, everywhere and nobody gives two shits about nude leaks or revenge porn any more.

    • JGrffn@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Surely you can see how this also isn’t a fitting solution. Just… Go down the age brackets and see how increasingly uncomfortable it all becomes to tolerate this. There’s already been cases of AI porn of highschoolers made by highschoolers. We can keep going down the victim age line, or up the perpetrator age line. It gets bad pretty fast regardless of how ubiquitous this might become in the future.

      • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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        7 months ago

        There isn’t another answer though. The tech is there, it will only get worse to the point we can’t recognize a fake any more. It makes much more sense to lean into it and make sure before that point is reached that it doesn’t ruin peoples lives any more to have that stuff circulated.

      • Radioactive Radio@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Even with the age brackets. Porn of someone you know is just weird. We’ve progressed too far into the wrong direction. Imagine if people put this much effort into curing cancer.

  • andrewta@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Naaaahhhh we didn’t see this coming at all. Golly gee this is a total shock that this is happening.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Combining this with AR goggles, you really will be able to see everyone else naked when you’re giving a speech.

  • 𝐘Ⓞz҉@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Disgusting! Where are people downloading this app from so that I can avoid the website or that app store?

    • SchizoDenji@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Models from CivitAi, and Automatic1111/ComfyUI for front-end. The rest is just a learning curve for all the features and prompting.

  • tegs_terry@feddit.uk
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    7 months ago

    It’ll work in their favour eventually. There won’t be any more revenge porn because it can just be dismissed as fake immediately.

  • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’ve made this comment other places, I’ll make it here. This tech changes much less than people think. If anything, this will protect people from leaking of nudes because people will assume it’s probably fake.

    All this is is an advanced form of fantasy that has existed ever since photoshop has existed. And importantly, we will deal with these nude photos the exact same way we deal with real nudes.

    Meaning, if you catch people distributing fake photos of their classmates, the punishment should be the same as if they were real. And they need to be severe.

    The reason this is a problem and I’m concerned for young women is that protections for sexual harassment online have already been abysmal. So this will make things worse and since we don’t protect women very well in the US, I expect major issues. Basically, the problems aren’t new, but our lack of action will make this awful. Treated correctly, this is a non-issue and these photos should be kept in private.

  • Karlos_Cantana@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    Nowhere in the article did it mention what the apps were. I’d just like to know what they are so I can avoid them.