Deepfake Porn Reveals a ‘Pervert’s Dilemma’

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April 10 was a very bad day in the life of celebrity gamer and YouTuber Atrioc (Brandon Ewing). Ewing was broadcasting one of his regular Twitch live streams when his browser window was accidentally exposed to his audience. During those brief moments, viewers suddenly came face to face with what appeared to be fake porn videos featuring YouTubers and gamers QTCinderella and Pokimane, colleagues, and, as I understand it, Ewing’s. friends. Moments later, a witty bystander uploaded a screenshot of the scene to Reddit, and thus the scandal was a fact.

Deepfakes broadly refer to AI-manipulated media, commonly to superimpose a person’s face onto that of, for example, an actor in a film or video clip. But sadly, as reported by Vice journalist Samantha Cole, their primary role has been to create pornography starring female celebrities and, perhaps most alarmingly, enacting sexual fantasies of male or female friends. acquaintances. Given its increasing sophistication and availability, anyone who has a picture of your face can now basically turn it into a porn movie. “We’re all screwed,” as Cole puts it tersely.

To most people, I think, it’s obvious that Ewing committed some kind of misconduct by consuming his friends’ fictional but non-consensual pornography. In fact, the comments on Reddit and the strong (justified) reactions from the women whose faces were used in the clips testify to a deep sense of disgust. This is understandable, but pinpointing exactly where the crime is is a surprisingly difficult task. In fact, the task of doing so highlights a philosophical problem that forces us to reconsider not just pornography, but the very nature of the human imagination. I call it the pervert’s dilemma.

On the one hand, it can be argued that by consuming the material, Ewing was incentivizing its production and dissemination, which, in the end, can damage the reputation and well-being of her fellow players. But I doubt the verdict in the public eye would have been much milder if she had produced the videos of her own hand for personal pleasure. And few people see the lack of closing the tab from it as the main problem. That is, the crime appears to reside in the consumption of the deep fakes itself, not in the aftereffects of doing so. Consuming deepfakes is wrong, full stop, regardless of whether the people “starring” in the clips, or anyone else, finds out.

At the same time, we are equally certain that sexual fantasies are morally neutral. In fact, no one (except perhaps some staunch Catholics) would have blamed Ewing for creating pornographic images of QTCinderella in her mind. But what is the difference, really? Both fantasy and deepfake are essentially virtual images produced by prior data input, only one existing in one’s head, the other on a screen. It is true that the latter can be more easily shared, but if the crime is personal consumption, and not external effects, this should be irrelevant. Hence the pervert’s dilemma: we believe that sexual fantasies are okay as long as they are generated and contained in a person’s head, and abominable as long as they exist in the brain with the aid of a somewhat realistic representation; relevant distinction to justify this assessment.

In the long run, this is likely to force us to reevaluate our moral attitudes toward deep fakes and sexual fantasies, at least to the extent that we want to maintain consistency in our morality. There are two obvious ways in which this could occur.