AI brings deepfake pornography to the masses, as Canadian laws play catch-up

Underage Canadian high school girls are targeted using AI to create fake explicit photos that spread online. Google searches bring up multiple free websites capable of "undressing" women in a matter of minutes. The world's biggest pop star falls prey to a deepfake pornographer, with the images viewed tens of millions of times. This is the new era of artificial pornography for the masses.

Underage Canadian high school girls are targeted using AI to create fake explicit photos that spread online. Google searches bring up multiple free websites capable of “undressing” women in a matter of minutes. The world's biggest pop star falls prey to a deepfake pornographer, with the images viewed tens of millions of times.

This is the new era of artificial pornography for the masses.

The technology required to create convincing fake pornography has existed for years, but experts warn that it's faster and more accessible than ever, creating an urgent challenge for Canadian policymakers.

Advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible to do with a cellphone what once would have required a supercomputer, said Philippe Pasquier, a professor of creative AI at Simon Fraser University in B.C.

Pasquier said society has “lost the certainty” of what is real and what is altered.

“The technology got a little better in the lab, but mostly the quality of the technology that anyone and everyone has access to has got better,” he said.

“If you increase the accessibility of the technology, that means good and bad actors are going to be much more numerous.”