The nascent and exploding category of AI-generated porn is already under attack from lawmakers, moralists, and sensationalists, but this week it received a welcome nod of approval – from no less than Reddit. Although you may not have noticed it, given the number of subreddits that have sprung up there over the last few months, devoted to AI porn and some with tens of thousands of followers, but AI porn was technically against the rules since 2018. Of course, until quite recently, ‘AI porn’ was essentially deepfake porn, almost invariably of celebrities and created without their consent, and this is what the 2018 rule was aimed at. But how it was worded, particularly a ‘Rule 3’ designed to prohibit representations of nudity or sexual content that “may have been falsified”, has made any AI-generated porn technically forbidden. Until this week, that is.
Reddit has now updated its policy to explicitly allow AI-generated sexual content, so long as it represents fictional characters. The full updated rule is as follows :
Note that the rule does not apply to media distributed commercially with the consent of those depicted, AI-generated sexual media that depicts fictional people or characters, or artistic depictions (e.g., cartoons, anime, etc.) – although keep in mind our rules regarding respecting the intellectual property of others.
Of course, it’s no secret that AI image generators, and thus AI porn image generators, are trained on real people, even if it is literally millions of real people. Some anti-porn campaigners are already seeking to justify treating all AI porn as non-consensual deepfake porn. The careful wording of the new Reddit rule would suggest that the company may be keeping its options open, and seeing which way the wind blows as regards public opinion, and indeed the law, on AI-generated porn. Still, coming as it does amidst a raft of sensationalist and ominous headlines over AI porn, it’s something to be welcomed.
*Featured image found at r/unstablediffusion, and posted by Redditor Mua AI Goddess. Another popular AI porn subreddit is /AIPornHub. And of course, we have our own subreddit discussing AI porn, VR porn etc at r/ImmersivePorn. Also check out our list of the best AI porn generators.
