In pornography, the most delicate part of the body isn’t the buttocks or the genitals, but the face.
The face is the area people try hard to hide during a rather shy webcam show, when you don’t want to be recognised. It’s also the area many people love to look at during sex. Because that’s where the expressions are, and you can read the other person’s pleasure from it, even when you’re watching porn.
But what happens when technology gets involved? Between fakes and facial recognition, where do the interactions between porn, faces and algos stand? From Deepfakes to Pornhub, a broad overview.
Deepfakes: fake porn videos thanks to machine learning
Under the pseudonym Deepfakes, someone created a celebrity fake porn video using a machine learning algo. Indeed, this internet user, who has remained anonymous, managed to splice the face of Gal Gadot, the actress who plays Wonder Woman, into a porn video.
Deepfakes also published fake pornos of varying success on Reddit. They feature Emma Watson, Maisie Williams, Scarlett Johansson and Aubrey Plaza, thanks to a sort of elaborate face swap.
If you look carefully at the videos, you can clearly see that something’s off. Indeed, a weird square surrounds the face. You also notice subtle differences in the skin tone, eyebrows that sometimes duplicate themselves, and cropped hair.
It’s not hard to tell, you immediately notice it’s a fake. But for a fake made by one guy, all on his own and without a big budget, it’s still very convincing.
The future of fake porn?
Will making a fake porn video starring your neighbour on the same floor as the lead actress soon be a cheap hobby anyone can get into? Should we be worried about it, or, on the contrary, delighted? Because in the future, if someone comes across a video of you doing naughty things, you can always claim it’s been faked.
In the meantime, don’t believe everything you see.
Facial recognition on Pornhub
If you can change the faces in a porn video, you can also identify who they belong to. Pornhub now uses facial recognition to identify the actors and actresses featured in its videos, in order to improve its search engine.
It’s not the only site to link facial recognition and pornography: pornstar.id lets you identify a porn actress from a photo she appears in, or find porn lookalikes of a girl you find cute.
Well, for now, it may not be super polished… But in the long run, won’t it risk harming actresses who want to keep their anonymity, especially the amateur ones?
