Everybody knows that the adult biz has been struggling for years in the age of torrents and tube sites. Those who still make a living promoting porn are always looking, and hoping, for ‘the next big thing’ to happen that will save the industry.
A decade ago and many of us anticipated that it would be 3D TV porn that might be the saviour. Of course, although stereo 3D porn continues to be a small niche, the 3D revolution never happened and 3D TVs are no more. More recently, virtual reality has been trumpeted to an even bigger extent, and yet again things haven’t played out as expected. Five years after the first virtual reality porn site came online, and it’s uncertain whether VR, or even AR (augmented reality), will become anything more than a niche, let alone the saviour of the industry, in the next decade or two.
A technology that very much seems to be NOT over-hyped is artificial intelligence. The adult world certainly sat up and took notice when something called ‘deep fake porn’ began to grab headlines. Deep Fakes use A.I. algorithms to transpose the face of a celebrity or…anybody..onto the body of a pornstar acting in a scene. The A.I. is so advanced at this point, that rather than a cut and paste job that looks obvious, the substitute face can now be almost seemlessly placed onto the pornstar, with the face moving just as the pornstar does/did in the scene.
Of course the possibilities of this are endless, particularly when you think about it getting integrated with virtual or augmented reality porn. Unsurprisingly, there are quite a few forward minded people in the adult industry getting rather excited about this tech.
But will A.I. rescue the adult industry or will it be the death of it? While many see A.I. and deep fake style tech being the ‘next big thing’, I see it potentially as being the next big thing in the journey that began with torrents and then free tubes in ‘democratizing’ porn for the masses and delivering perhaps the final nail in the coffin of the adult industry, or at least the ‘paying for porn’ business model.
For there will come a time soon when any person with a VR headset and the A.I. software (which will eventually be as easy to download and play as an MP3 or a porn video) will enable him to experience a convincing virtual sex experience with anybody, with the fantasy tailored to his wants and desires. In other words, why pay for a particular scene involving a particular pornstar, when it will be easy to generate your ultimate sex fantasy played out by your ultimate dream sexual partner?
Of course such tech will be heavily regulated, and already there have been demands to bring in laws to stop deep fake porn in the UK, but it will be very hard to do so completely.
There has been an interesting discussion on the ‘porn industry board’ GFY recently. You can read it here but you have to be a member (and show your adult industry credentials before joining) in order to take part : https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-program-discussion/1308787-is-there-no-next-big-thing-going-on.html
