United Kingdom, this week, is set to bring in a new law that will make the creation of non-consensual intimate images illegal. This will include the images created through the use of AI technology, that is, deepfakes, and “nudification.” The the new law was alluded to in a social media post and its main aim is to tackle the rapidly growing problem of digitally altered adult content. The law, in this scenario, is a massive move toward the prohibition of non-consensual sexually, that is, AI-generated materials, protecting the right of the individuals to be shown in that specific way only with their consent.
Translation, the UK has pretty much announced that it is going to be a crime to use AI to make non-existent nude pictures of people gone. I’m like, a real crime that can be punished by legal action. The tweet that broke this news got a flood of replies and different views expressed in them. While some people backed the new law with “at long last, this is very fair,” others are already pointing out their ways to outsmart the law or pinpointing what they think are bigger problems. It’s really a whole game, honestly.
A rather early supporter of the law through social media, Emanuel Riquelme, simply tweeted “Actually sounds reasonable”. Of course, that’s what it looks like from the surface. But there was opposition again right away, though! The account called Dragon Lady said: “Does he know apps like Photoshop have been doing it for years and no-one has ever complained🤡?” And that’s certainly a point! Digital manipulation of photographs has been common practice from time immemorial. But the thing is that AI tools like Stable Diffusion and those odd “nudify” apps have made it so fast and so simple that the issue has escalated to gigantic proportions. It’s no longer a matter of a talented artist in Photoshop; literally, anyone with a smartphone and spite can now create their version of the scene.
The most interesting part of the whole discussion is that the confusion brought about by the replies was even greater than the controversy itself. One of the users, Mcbutter, went straight to the point and said: “Anything but address the gangs.” Which is, of course, a completely different political issue but it nonetheless shows how some people perceived this as a diversion. A different user, NuclearWinter, asked a very reasonable question: “Whats considered intimate? Bathing suits?” This will definitely lead to a legal grey area. Is the adding of a bikini on a person who is fully clothed an “intimate image”? The law will have to come up with its definitions, and of course, gamers and internet geeks will start to check those limits right away!
And then the issue of enforcement pops up. Raisins just laughed and said, “What are they going to do? How are they going to enforce this? VPNs exist, lmao.” And they are right. The internet indeed imposes no boundaries. If someone abroad makes a deepfake of a UK politician or a streamer and then posts it online, what do you think will happen? It becomes a global enforcement nightmare. Another user, Ebian, even suggested with a smile that he would be “changing his VPN to UK to waste their resources :)” which is just the online chaos energy at its height.
Some of the replies got surprisingly specific and political. A user named Red asked the AI Grok to “Create an image of Keir Starmer crying in a dress holding a sign saying ‘I’m offended!'” which is… a very vivid, to say the least. Some others made parallels with Korea’s laws coming in 2024, and AI Grok even participated in the discussion by explaining the differences. Apparently, Korea’s law is much tougher than the ones in the UK, convicting even those who have or watch the deepfakes with prison time, while the UK law is more related to the creators and the platforms that host the materials.
It is a very significant issue for game players and streamers. Just think about it. Female streamers already have to deal with the harassment issue, and the “uglification” of their images. It is easy to imagine that if the new law were to be bypassed, the situation would become even more difficult as any person would simply be able to type in a prompt and in seconds, a very realistic fake obscene image would be generated. The law is trying to build a solid defense wall around this type of scenario. A user named etherallax pretty much stated “Anyone supporting this bill should be checked for their drives,” which is quite an aggressive stance but attests to how serious some people consider the intrusion.
But then again, there’s the classic skepticism of the internet. Jolly Roger is going to be watching, and he predicts: “Well this will be hilarious 😆.”
