Naughty America Wants to Monetize Deepfake Porn

When a flood of fake celebrity pornography generated by artificial intelligence (AI) technology surfaced on the internet earlier this year, most tech platforms were quick to ban these so-called deepfake clips. Folks at the adult entertainment company Naughty America, on the other hand, began looking into ways to make money with deepfakes.

When a flood of fake celebrity pornography generated by artificial intelligence (AI) technology surfaced on the internet earlier this year, most tech platforms were quick to ban these so-called deepfake clips. Folks at the adult entertainment company Naughty America, on the other hand, began looking into ways to make money with deepfakes.

This week, the company is launching a new service that allows customers to commission their own deepfake clips, which can include superimposing their own faces onto the bodies of porn performers, or incorporating porn stars into different environments. “We see customization and personalization as the future,” said the company’s CEO Andreas Hronopoulos in an interview with Variety.

Naughty America launched the new offering with a few clips that show off what the technology is capable of. In one instance, the company swapped out the face of porn performer Zoey Monroe with that of fellow performer Blair Williams (adult content, not safe for work).

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In a separate clip, it showed how it can take a porn performer, isolate her from the background, and place her into another environment — something that fans could use to commission a scene with their favorite performer starring in their home, explained Hronopoulos. “I can put people in your bedroom.”

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Deepfakes essentially use AI deep learning technology to train algorithms on how a person looks like, which can then be used to recreate that likeness within the context of another video. The results can be indistinguishable from unedited videos, especially if there is enough image data to properly train these algorithms.

Naughty America has a script that it uses to ask customers for footage of themselves, which include specific instructions for facial expressions necessary for optimal results. The company also uses its existing compliance department to make sure that any and all footage used comes from consenting adults.

Hronopoulos said that it is looking to develop other ways of customizing videos with the help of AI, which could include having porn performers say your name, or other phrases, on request. “It’s exciting,” he said. “We see customization and personalization as the future.”

Naughty America’s CEO doesn’t actually like the term deepfakes, which was coined as a combination of deep learning and fake videos. “It’s just editing, that’s all it is,” he said, arguing that even the phenomenon of fake celebrity porn isn’t all that new. “People have been editing people’s faces on pictures since the internet started.”

At the same time, Hronopoulos argued that the technology itself has implications that go far beyond the adult entertainment industry. “The future of entertainment is personalization,” he said. “I don’t think you can exist in the media industry if you aren’t prepared to use this technology.”

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