Generative AI: the Exploitation of Women & Girls
By now, much of the western world has heard about the crime committed against Taylor Swift — that multiple individuals chose to create AI-generated pornographic images of her. If this is not yet a crime, it most certainly should be. Swift has had these images created without her express approval, and the impact is tantamount to that of revenge porn.
Part of me wants to say that it doesn’t matter that this happened to Taylor Swift — that it happened to anyone is fucked up enough. The other part of me disagrees — that if it can happen to Taylor freaking Swift of all people, it can happen to anyone, including teenage girls.
As a woman, I have no idea how to respond outside of feeling horrified. We already live with the knowledge that sending nude photos or videos could result in revenge porn being shared down the line. Now, we must worry about any photo of ourselves being used for this nefarious purpose. How, how can we have any public presence, much less online presence, without the possibility of this occurring? And how many more things must we be warned against as preteens and teenagers when this is in no way our fault or our responsibility — how long are we going to allow boys and men to be be taught the very basic of lesson not hating women and viewing them as objects? Parents, teachers, society — what the hell are you not doing?
So, who the hell is at fault here for these horrific, unethical, dare I say monstrous acts? First and foremost, the individual(s) who committed the act. They must be held as responsibly as if they had shared revenge porn online. For those who committed this with photos of underage girls, the question of child pornography also comes in. I would hope they’d be tried for that as well.
In addition, this responsibility falls on the companies who allowed this to happen. Any company that provided the tools to create these explicit images without the express permission of the victim must be held at fault for not protecting the public. They must be held to a higher standard; it doesn’t matter that they didn’t pull the trigger if they still created the weapon, knowing full well the damage it could cause.
Parents of boys and men must also be held responsible for teaching their sons. While not responsible for every single action committed by their child, guardians are nonetheless responsible for ensuring their child is taught right from wrong. We must place a heavier emphasis on this and not on warning our daughters to act and dress and be a certain way — so they can maybe, hopefully prevent themselves from being victimized when that should never have been expected of them in the first place.
This hurts — as a woman and as a future mother. If I have a daughter, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to protect her from all of this.
I don’t know if it’s even possible.
