Andreessen Horowitz Invests in Civitai, Which Profits from Nonconsensual AI Porn

https://www.404media.co/andreessen-horowitz-invests-in-civitai-key-platform-for-deepfake-porn/

by davidgerard • 3 years ago

47 95 3 years ago

HillRat• 3 years ago

Creating a deepfake marketplace trading in celebrity and private-person identities is ... quite the choice to make, legally (and ethically) speaking.

brucethemoose210• 3 years ago

The models are free without a login. The only way I would characterizing it as a "marketplace," it individuals offering commissions, I guess.

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

Some are available early exclusively to paid members, and there are onsite model training and generation services, which are paid (in virtual, but can be bought for cash, currency.)

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

But that wasn't the choice, the choice was to create an open hub for basically everything related to Stable Diffusion, with limits for a broad range of illegal things, but without policies against things that are steps out from that because at even one step out the “well, combined with other things it could be used badly” bans everything.

The highlighted bounty feature is technically accurately, but misleadingly, described. Yes, people can and do post requests for models of real celebs there, but they also post requests for fictional character models, for concept models not tied to particular real or fictional characters, for technical assistance with model training, for people to generate showcase images for existing models.

arcticbull• 3 years ago

So the choice was not screening for it. Regardless, without moralizing, a choice was made. This is a shocked pikachu situation.

[edit] The fact is we've had this kind of content for a long time, and we've developed techniques for identifying and removing it. There's great nudity detecting ML models. I suspect the choice was made in part ideologically, and in part to drive sensationalist coverage, and it looks like it's working.

PheonixPharts3• 3 years ago

Have you used Civit.ai? While it does cater to audiences interested in "adult" content I don't think any of it's active users would characterize it as "a deepfake marketplace trading in celebrity and private-person identities".

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

Have you used Civit.ai?

The dot in “CivitAI" is between “AI” and “com” if you are referring to the domain name, or just “there isn't one” if you are referring to the name.

enlyth• 3 years ago

The article is low quality clickbait.

Civitai is just a popular place to host stable diffusion models / LORAs / textual inversions, not some kind of fake nudes marketplace. It's the huggingface of stable diffusion.

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

Huggingface is the Huggingface of Stable Diffusion (and a lot of stuff is on both.)

Reubend• 3 years ago

This is the next pearl clutching headline that people will be reading over and over for any models that generate images.

"Oh no, the model can generate porn!" "Oh no, it can generate realistic photos of people!" "Oh no, it can generate violent or racist images!"

I'm so sick of people arguing that we should just shut down AI research or commercialization because it could be used maliciously. Think of how many grocery store products could be used maliciously if someone wanted to. Should we not allow people to buy bleach? Should we not allow knives to be sold?

People need to get over their misgivings from this new technology and start taking accountability for that fact that models can be abused like any other tool. That doesn't mean we should just not give anyone access to them.

Obscurity4340• 3 years ago

So maliciously you gon need an Xray to see where it ended up! They prepping for desurgery now

kmbfjr• 3 years ago

Sorry you are tired of people voicing legitimate concerns, perhaps you can tune them out and use your own likeness in pornography to help these companies speed things along.

Ya know, take one for the team so to speak.

bobthepanda4• 3 years ago

Is the article suggesting that it should be shut down entirely? I didn’t read that anywhere. I would actually think that its asking for basic accountability and due diligence.

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

Is the article suggesting that it should be shut down entirely?

No, its misleading by selective focus (like the previous article it references) to get people to come to that conclusion themselves, a much more effective persusasive technique than the explicit demand because with the explicit demand people assume your evidence is selective to support the demand which may have ulterior motive, while they are less likely to do so if your presentation is superficially merely informative but actually selectively crafted to motivate a particular conclusion.

riskable• 3 years ago

The problem here is assuming that civitai would be the ones who are accountable. I don't think that's the case since they're just hosting a collection of perfectly legal Stable Diffusion checkpoints (aka "models").

The people who download a checkpoint and a LoRA (a special kind of sub-checkpoint or "model modifier" if you will) of some celebrity are the ones who would be generating something like porn using that celebrity's likeness. Not civitai.

In this instance civitai is providing tools that can be used to generate unauthorized porn just like Home Depot provides tools that can be used to make illegal weapons.

Is it illegal to make a LoRA of someone's likeness without their permission? No. Because until it is used to generate images which are then published it's like a gun in a safe, doing nothing... Just sitting there.

There's no federal laws protecting likeness anyway (only certain states). So civitai has no real obligation there.

Is it ethical to make a model of someone's likeness without their permission though? I don't know. To me, it's akin to taking a picture of someone in public... If they're in a public space they're "broadcasting" their likeness.

You can make a really great LoRA of anyone's likeness with just a handful of images. If you're skilled you can probably do it with just one image (using some controlnet stuff).

kemotep2• 3 years ago

I think there’s room for, allowing people to control their own likeness while not fully banning AI content generation.

I mean, do people have a right to privacy? Is there some line between having privacy and infringing on someone’s freedom of expression through AI content generators that you would accept?

a_wild_dandan6• 3 years ago

There is no unique likeness to control. You have thousands of doppelgangers, real and imagined. Want free expression/privacy? Don't control them.

dangerwill• 3 years ago

People have been using various chemicals for cleaning and knives for cooking for thousands of years. They are embedded in our culture. LLMs only became popular a year ago and the farthest back you can go with their origins is the 1950s. It is not at all unreasonable for people to say "hey should we require that this new tool have safeguards built in so it isn't horribly abused?", especially when you consider that these are not just tools that have been fashioned from the natural world, these are products provided by companies that are in some cases gleefully amoral. A space moving quickly is reason for more criticism and caution from the general public, not less.

And if safeguards cannot be put into place by design into your tool, then that is malicious design

Turing_Machine• 3 years ago

"Oh no, the model can generate porn!" "Oh no, it can generate realistic photos of people!" "Oh no, it can generate violent or racist images!"

Right. So can paintbrushes. So can guys with deer antlers scratching on cave walls.

vasdae2• 3 years ago

"Nonconsensual AI porn" is a weasel term because it implies that it should be necessary to get someone's consent to create fake porn using their faces.

bobthepanda4• 3 years ago

It definitely should be. I don’t want my face used for porn if I just randomly shot a stock photo.

Controlling likenesses in AI was the whole point of the SAG strike.

brucethemoose210• 3 years ago

What if I hired a human artist to hand draw the fake instead?

What if they used Photoshop instead of drawing from a reference?

robertlagrant• 3 years ago

Controlling likenesses in AI was the whole point of the SAG strike.

I think they had 5 or 6 demands.

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

Controlling likenesses in AI was the whole point of the SAG strike.

No, it wasn't.

It was one important issue in the strike, but there were others (streaming residuals were a big issue, for instance.)

nmjohn• 3 years ago

because it implies that it should be necessary

Who gets to decide what should or should not be necessary? Do you think your opinion about this is the majority view by people?

lesuorac• 3 years ago

Well, USA specific but don't you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#United_Stat...

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

“In the United States, the right of publicity is a state law–based right, as opposed to federal, and recognition of the right can vary from state to state.”

So, the USA-specific answer is depends on the specific US state(s) whose law relevant to the action in controversy.

There are countries with national rights in this area, but the USA is (and your source highlights this) not one of them.

badrequest2• 3 years ago

It should, obviously, be necessary to do this.

tshaddox3• 3 years ago

Any term given to a specific criminal action will often be used to refer to that action with the implication that it’s a crime, yes.

arrosenberg4• 3 years ago

It unequivocally should. Stop abusing peoples' privacy or you are going to get your toys taken away...

PheonixPharts3• 3 years ago

The irony of course is that people are only able to create deepfakes of non-celebrities because social media has already gotten the average user very comfortable with letting go of their privacy.

vasdae2• 3 years ago

Taking a pornographic movie and putting someone's face in place of one of the actor's does not violate their privacy in any way, since nothing private was shared that wasn't private before (their face).

a_wild_dandan6• 3 years ago

Well said. If you fancy using my likeness as a dartboard, or in a meme, or as a Photoshop asset, or painted on a canvas, or drawn by AI, or mistakenly randomly generated, etc, great! Have fun. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I'm not entitled to categorically own/forbid using a look. That's nonsense and leads to self-inflicted quandaries: How do I know a video of unknown provenance contains me, not a dead ringer that gave consent? How different must a depiction be to not require my consent? 9 pixels? 30%, whatever that means? At least an eye color change?

It's impossible to consistently enforce, presumptive, and effectively thought-policing a concept. In short: it's absurd.

tshaddox3• 3 years ago

How do I know a video of unknown provenance contains me, not a dead ringer that gave consent?
It's impossible to consistently enforce, presumptive, and effectively thought-policing a concept. In short: it's absurd.

I mean, come on. It’s fine to disapprove of the law, but this isn’t some uniquely difficult thing that the legal system couldn’t possibly handle. It’s certainly nowhere near the level of complexity and ambiguity of, for instance, criminal fraud law, where things like the intent of the accused and the “reasonable person” are routinely crucial elements.

bigbillheck• 3 years ago

It should be necessary to get someone's consent to create fake porn using their faces.

victorevector• 3 years ago

This appears to be sensationalized. This is the first time I've heard of Civitai, but I perused their website and I found no porn.

NegativeK2• 3 years ago

There are a lot of porn models and Loras on the site.

godelmachine• 3 years ago

What’s a Loras?

cr__2• 3 years ago

The fact remains that there is porn on Civitai.

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

Which is a good thing for the non-porn SD world, because a lot of the improvements from the base models in human anatomy non-porn-focussed third-party models come from merging porn-focussed models in with other trained models.

(Which parallels the role of nudes is other visual arts domains.)

nickthegreek3• 3 years ago

and? Photoshop also "profits from nonconsensual porn".

dragonwriter16• 3 years ago

CivitAI seems to have improved the filtering on the logged out experience, then.

Which, yay, big plus; porn slapping visitors on the face used to be a big deal.

Its still definitely there, and 404 clearly has a paid account since they posted about deliverately violating the nonconsensual porn policy for science with the paid onsite generation services.

mjr00• 3 years ago

Civitai doesn't show the pornographic models/LoRAs unless you're logged in, but it's there.

That being said, the article is an awful sensationalist hit piece. It's as accurate as saying "Andreessen Horowitz Invests in YouTube, Which Profits from Schizophrenics Making Videos of Racist Tirades" or "AH Invests in Github, Which Profits from Software Banned in China and Iran"; true strictly speaking, but completely misrepresenting the purpose of the service.

callalex• 3 years ago

Everything from 404media is oversensationalized lies.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 3 years ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/16h5xfl/ho...

brucethemoose210• 3 years ago

I disagree with the tone of the headline. CivitAI is a good resource, and the rest of AI world could learn from it for, for example, LLM lora/grammar hosting.

But I am concerned, for a different reason.

Civitai's enshittification potential is sky high. They are hosting loads of enormous models and images for free, on a very spiffy, heavy website. There's no way thats sustainable.

PheonixPharts3• 3 years ago

Civitai's enshittification potential is sky high.

I share these same concerns.

What this space desperately needs is to have models shared via torrent. As it is today Civit.ai has had problems with creators decided to take down their own models and suddenly people who were using them have no place to find them.

I suspect we'll see more and more lockdowns on what models are deemed "appropriate" and it would be nice to have a decentralized alternative.

Not to mention torrenting is the only rational way to sustainably host such large files at no cost.

brucethemoose210• 3 years ago

Uh, I don't want to see an unmoderated, distributed CivitAI. That would be a unspeakable wasteland.

And there already are torrents of SD models. Just filter by the .safetensors filetype.

If would be nice if their hosting was decentralized though. Users seem to hoard LoRAs and merges in personal collection anyway, mind as well help distroute them so Civit doesn't have to enshittify so quick.

loandbehold• 3 years ago

Black Mirror had an episode about this tech, called Joan is Awful.

srameshc• 3 years ago

Now we just need an AI startup which can fight & Win over such companies who generate Nonconsensual AI Porn, without a need to hire a lawyer.

jantissler• 3 years ago

What a sensationalist headline … I thought 404 Media were supposed to be the good ones. Sad to see them go down that route so quickly.

WXLCKNO• 3 years ago

I keep seeing 404 more and more these days, hate the name first of all but yeah I agree.

nickthegreek3• 3 years ago

Unsure why your comment is in the grey. I'm with you. When they first came on the scene a few months back they had some nice tech meets the real world articles, but the headlines and articles attached seem to have gone downhill rather quickly.

snvzz4• 3 years ago

Character assassination article and headline.

Being an investor for some company does not make one responsible for the company breaking the law. Even less so for allegedly breaking the law.

How was this not buried instantly?

cr__2• 3 years ago

What’s incorrect about the headline?

snvzz4• 3 years ago

Somebody is targeting this Horowitz person I do not know nor care about.

They dug and dug, and found something to attack them with. A connection by investing into a company allegedly doing something illegal and deeply immoral.

Let me put extra emphasis: Horowitz isn't allegedly doing something illegal and immoral. A company he is investing on is allegedly doing something illegal and immoral.

We're supporting this lynching campaign by tolerating it and giving it attention.

infecto• 3 years ago

Perhaps not incorrect but the article felt like it took the single angle that it was all about adult images.

gtbcb• 3 years ago

I feel like the long term equilibrium of stuff like this is that in the not too distant future, anyone will be able to easily generate weird deepfake inappropriate porn / content for anyone. It seems unavoidable.

I might argue this could be good in that this sort of stuff will become so commonplace that it won't be a big deal and people will learn (be forced to shrug it off). Up until now-ish, the scarcity of celebrity nude leaks and revenge porn type stuff made it somewhat of a forbidden fruit. I like the idea of destigmatizing this sort of stuff so that it loses power.

That said, I'm sure there will be some casualties along the way. Eg vulnerable teens who are picked on by mean girls / boys, semi-celebrities / public figures who are targeted by online trolls, etc. I hope that the prevalence of this sort of stuff enlarges the conversation around this, increasing the reach of strategies to deal with this stuff psychologically, and significantly reduces it's impact.

I don't know many celebrities or politicians, but I suspect that after they see a few weird / porn related photos of themselves, they stop caring.

Thoughts?

outside1234• 3 years ago

The company that shilled coins? I'm shocked.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 3 years ago

https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/14/andreessen-horowitz-backs-...