AI generated images are showing up with increasing frequency in my media feeds. They still have a slightly fake soulless feel to them, as if they were created by ad agencies for marketing campaigns, but the quality has undeniably taken a big jump forward. For example, this thread has some interesting examples of how it can simulate different camera lenses.
This inevitably means people are going to try to create pornography with it. Which, equally inevitably, is going to lead to an evolving battle with the tech companies and government over what’s allowed and what gets censored. It’s a cycle that has played out with every technical evolution since the dawn of time.
Fortunately, kink might actually have an advantage here, because our take on what constitutes erotic material tends to be a lot wider than most peoples. For example, consider the image below. I doubt an image classifier would ever tag it as pornography but I’m betting a significant fraction of my readers will find it very erotic. I predict that a lot of kinky creative types are going to have fun creating non-explicit imagery that pushes their own personal buttons. The results might not be great art, but AI will probably do a better job than amateurs with basic photoshop tools.
Unfortunately I don’t have a source for this. Guessing it’s a mainstream fashion shot that I stumbled on via a femdom tumblr.
I have an opinion on this.
As you may know, for the last few years I have indulged in creating “chastity caption” pictures that I post to Tumblr (link in my sig below) and Twitter. Almost all of the several thousand images that I’ve done come from uncredited Tumblr posts. A handful of the women I recognize (Danica Collins, London Andrews, and of few of the more well known Dommes who appear online), but most of the pictures go uncredited – which is a shame because the models and their photographers should get some credit.
A handful of times I’ve been contacted by the model, who either gives me permission to use her images, or requests them to be taken down (and a surprising number have asked me to create more and have sent along a few more images for me to use).
But using AI created images would mean that I and my fellow caption creators could continue to post our ridiculous micro-erotica without violating copyrights or other artistic licenses. I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing. I can think of a few down-sides to this, but at least there’s no art theft going on.
I’m kind of amazed you’ve been contacted by models at all – let alone some who wanted more images created. I think in a decade plus here, I’ve only had one photographer reach out to request an image be removed. Twice I’ve had pro-dommes ask to remove images, but that was because they were retiring and trying to scrub their online presence.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to share thoughts here. It’s a good point about caption creation. So good in fact that I used it as inspiration for my follow-up post. So thanks again for that!
-paltego
About the models and my being contacted on both Twitter and Tumblr: sometimes somebody recognizes them and will tag them in a comment. A few have gotten ticked off at me for “stealing” their pictures, but I explain that I found an uncredited pic, and offer to remove it (and others with their image when I find them).
A few of them have been online dommes, and who offer keyholding or have some chastity related interest. I’ve offered to remove the posts, or to credit them in the comments. Most of them have enjoyed the captions I’ve written, and allow me to leave them up. A few have had favorite pictures that they wanted me to caption for them. And some don’t care, as long as the captions “make me look good” (actual quote by one of of them).
I think I’m fortunate that only a couple have become really upset; most of them have enjoyed the work. And many of them don’t even bother responded after I’ve contracted them.
Mmm… speaking as a fellow creator of micro-erotica, I’m not convinced. I think sometimes that not having complete freedom to design the picture can help keep things creative. I usually either encounter a picture I feel an urge to caption, or have an idea and go off searching through hundreds to find the right image for it. ‘Right’ can often involve some precise expression on the lady’s face that I might not even know until I see it. If I could just type ‘attractive young woman looking exasperated, standing in kitchen next to pile of washing up and waving wooden spoon at camera’ I doubt the AI would come up with the right thing and there isn’t the same feeling of matching words to images.
I wouldn’t want to over-intellectualise what is after all, a slightly sordid activity creating amateur porn using second-hand images, but it is just a little bit like Brian Eno’s strategy of giving musicians constraints on how they can play, to force them to be more creative. If you have too much freedom to make anything you want, it might be harder to make interesting images.
Anyway, I suspect that AI is a very long way from getting the facial expressions ‘just right’. I mean, people have been making Poser images for years (although that wave seems thankfully to be passing) and while in principle it’s a neat idea that you can position the figures doing anything you want, in practice I don’t think I’ve ever once seen a Poser image I thought interesting or erotic.
Anyway, I like spending ages working through hundreds of images of beautiful women to find the right one. I like that a lot.
Anyway, I like spending ages working through hundreds of images of beautiful women to find the right one. I like that a lot.
I do not disagree with what you wrote. But I downloaded a few different AI art apps, and discovered that I enjoyed creating dozens of *ahem* images of beautiful (albeit slightly uncanny-valley-ish) women to get just the right one.
Even the ones with extra hands and unidentifiable body parts.
Yes, I had a quick go at that and I should have another. OWK and related phrases seemed likely to be a good prompt, but the AI I tried rarely seemed to manage to generate anything very pervy. Still, suffer for our ‘art’ we must, so no doubt I will spend hundreds of hours generating ‘images’ at some point and I might change my mind.
I suppose for people with a kink for images of women with extra hands and unidentifiable body parts this is just the best thing ever.
I think a lot comes down to your view on how the technology will evolve.
The various 3D tools always required significant skill to get right and their output quality was always going to make it a niche thing.
Where it seems like the AI tools are a lot easier to use, can sometimes generate striking visuals and are attracting significant investment and research. Which means they’ll continue to get better, which attracts more interest, which generates more investment, etc. Feels like it could be one of those positive spirals that tech occasionally generates.
A couple of months back they were terrible at hands – now I see a lot less weirdness there. Clearly still a long way from perfect, but the pace of improvement seems dramatic. If I was the owner of a stock image company, I’d be worrying about now.
-paltego
By the way, Paltego (since I’m here), my blog has moved from Blogger to contemplatingthedivine.com. Do you think you could update your link?
Best wishes
S