Deep Fakes, FaceApp and Child Pornography
Deep Fakes, FaceApp and Child Pornography - Jacob Young - Medium
I do not intend to be alarmist in the slightest, but when drawing together concerning developments in our culture, I imagine it’s inevitable. Rather than writing an essay with a concrete ending, what I’m going to do is simply lay out a number of observations, hopefully in a logical sequence. The difference is simply to allow for the observations to be evaluated on their own, rather than everything leading to a singular point.Deepfakes are not just about pornography. The term “deepfakes” refers to “a technique for human image synthesis based on artificial intelligence. It is used to combine and superimpose existing images and videos onto source images or videos using a machine learning technique known as generative adversarial network” (Wiki). Which is to say, it is a program that blends real pictures to each other. It gained notoriety in 2017 when celebrities had their faces superimposed onto pornographic actors. But it’s not just about realizing the depraved imagination of one’s favorite celebrity anymore. Deepfakes are increasingly being used to produce convincingly produced videos for other outlets. For example, a video of Mark Zuckerberg making a sinister statement was recently released (here). You can read more about it at Vice. Or another recent example of Bill Hader’s impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger being “deepfaked” with the face of The Terminator himself.Deepfake tech is beginning to be easily accessible. Vice recently wrote about an app called Deep Nude, “an app that takes an image of a clothed woman, and with one click and a few seconds, turns that image into a nude by algorithmically superimposing realistic-looking breasts and vulva onto her body.” The app was created for user’s entertainment and ultimately was taken down because, “The world is not yet ready for DeepNude.” Because this is a list of points rather than an article, I’ll leave those realities to sit in your mind: An app that generated convincing but fake nude pictures of any woman was created for entertainment, and removed because the world isn’t ready for it yet.Pedophilia is being presented as a hardwired, unchangeable sexual preference in need of social accommodation. Two points to pull together here, 1: This was presented a year or so ago at a TEDx talk by Mirjam Heine in her talk, Pedophilia Is A Natural Sexual Orientation. (Please note, TED Talk’s statement.) 2: A connecting point here, and if it doesn’t follow, please forgive me: While some have forgotten his name, Michel Foucault famously lobbied to demolish the age of consent laws in France in the 1980’s (wiki). His line of thinking was that children have the capacity to express their sexuality in their own terms and should not be legally barred from exercising their sexuality, even if it involves a child engaging in sex acts with an adult, so long as there is no violence or abuse involved. His argument is that children have the capacity for sexuality, and therefore, it is oppressive, condescending and abusive to tell them they cannot engage the world sexually, even if someone under the age of consent (e.g. 18 years old) engages with an adult sexually. He argues “to suppose that a child is incapable of explaining what happened [sexually] and incapable of giving his consent are two abuses that are intolerable, quite unacceptable.” He goes on to say that “an age barrier laid down by law does not make much sense” (Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings 1977–1984 by Michel Foucault, p. 284). The point of these two aspects is simply this: There are substantial arguments being made about sexuality and children. Foucault’s argument is that children should be allowed to express their sexuality with an adult so long as there isn’t violence or abuse involved, and Mirjam Heine’s argument is that sexual attraction to children is unchangeably hardwired. Consider who wins (pedophiles) and looses (children) in their version of reality.The FaceApp shows that augmented reality will be allowed, but can be used both ways. I know I’m poking many of my friends in the eye here (I cantankerously said to my friends that the original FaceApp was called “parents”). FaceApp took a picture of your face and “aged” it. Apart from the security concerns about how this data will be used, it shows that augmented “fake” pictures of our “aged” self are ok. Now, I am not trying to be an alarmist, but the same tech that adds wrinkles and gray to your face, could easily be used to remove wrinkles and hair from your body. Which is to say, a picture that can be aged, can be “youthed”. To put this more pointedly, a picture of any person can be made to look younger, much younger.A few closing questions or thoughts:With apps like DeepNude being taken down, not because they’re morally deplorable, but because “the world isn’t ready yet” how long until an app is created to “youth” a picture of you or me into child pornography?An app like DeepNude means that any picture of a child could be used to generate fake child pornography of that child. If you’re a parent, let that read: of your child. Remember, with Facebook and Instagram, we are voluntarily putting hundreds and thousands of pictures online of our children.Will deepfake child pornography be illegal? No one was physically harmed or coerced into the production of said content. In fact, no child was physically harmed in the production of the deepfake picture/video. If the reasons for child pornography being wrong are only that children are harmed in its production, and that they should not be denied expressing their sexuality, I fear we are not far away from legally allowing it. To be clear, child pornography is morally repugnant and vile. The question is whether the law of the land will see deepfake’d or FaceApp’d child pornography differently.As a parent, I ask: Should I continue to put pictures of my children online?As a citizen, I wonder: How do I live in a digital world?