At the end of January, popular Twitch live-streamer Brandon Ewing — better known as Atrioc — was exposed in a now-deleted post online for allegedly patronizing a pornographic website that specialized in the production of “deepfakes” of online personalities, many of whom were his colleagues on Twitch and his personal friends.
Atrioc was accused of consuming pornography of his colleagues and friends that was generated through artificial intelligence (AI) technology without these individuals’ consent. In an apology stream, Atrioc admitted to the accusations and said he found the source of the deepfakes through advertisements on another porn website. He also admitted he was paying for videos in which AI was used to superimpose the likenesses of his friends and colleagues onto the bodies of pornographic actresses.
The resounding uproar online, originating with a video of Atrioc’s apology that has amassed millions of views, does appear to be justified. After all, he willfully solicited and consumed pornographic content in which the essence of his personal friends and his business partners was stolen and exploited.
The recent development of using AI technology to create pornography of individuals without their awareness or consent is an incredibly pernicious phenomenon. Some online refer to it as a form of “free speech” and suggest its existence isn’t doing harm since the people pictured in the videos are often public figures who are only having their likenesses nonconsensually grafted onto sexual content and are not forced to actually participate in nonconsensual activity.
In some ways, the
