Culture Reframed, a non-profit working to address the harms of pornography founded by Dr. Gail Dines, has released a new report: Sex Dolls, Sex Robots, and the Use of Artificial Intelligence to Undress and Abuse Children, authored by Dr. Eric Silverman.
The report outlines the current state of development of sex dolls, sex robots and AI, and how these technologies are being used to harm and exploit children. We were pleased to see our own Campaigns Manager Caitlin Roper cited throughout.
The report exposes false claims from academic defenders of these technologies, including that they are progressive or “sex positive”. As Dr. Silverman points out:
…the vast majority of AI sexual programs, devices and images do little more than reproduce conventional pornographic fantasies.
AI pornography is only positive about violence, misogyny, and child abuse. These claims are tantamount to gaslighting. This paper exposes the truth.
Dr. Silverman writes about AI, Deepfakes and Undressing Apps which “seemingly depicts identifiable people in pornographic activities that never occurred”, and how these technologies are often used by schoolboys to humiliate their female co-students: “These apps are akin to forcing an adolescent girl to parade naked against her will down the school hallway.”
Even where AI is used to generate pornographic images and videos of non-existing women and girls, Dr. Silverman rejects the notion these are ‘victimless crimes’:
…since the fake people so portrayed are almost always female, these images contribute to the wider objectification of women and girls.
Dr. Silverman highlights the trade in sex dolls and sex robots, including child sex abuse dolls, and how AI tech is increasingly being added to them to feign interaction with users. He determines there is no empirical evidence that men’s use of dolls and robots will prevent their abuse of children.
Dr. Silverman concludes:
I have shown that artificial intelligence is now an important and growing crucial enhancement of pornographic representations of children. In each instance, these devices and images were seen to pose real and compelling dangers to the social, emotional, and physical development of young people and also of adults who consume these representations. But no matter how well documented these harms, too many members of the academy remain beholden to the predatory pornography industry and its reining ideologies of misogyny and sexual violence.
Robots and AI programs send a message to children and adults alike about what men should expect sexually from women and girls – and what women and girls should heed: that the true worth of a woman is her fidelity to Pornhub, Hooters, or worse. One male sex doll owner said, “It’s a bit of like being your own God”. We do not want AI in the hands of men, raised on porn, who feel like a god.
See also:
“A tool to sexually exploit women and children”: Why AI will not prevent abuse
Culture Reframed launches program to help parents talk to their kids about porn
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