London, April 5: A woman in the United Kingdom has shared her story of discovering who was the person behind the presence of her deepfake pornographic images on a porn site. In an interview with the BBC, the woman said that an anonymous email account provided her a link to a pornographic website. She found photoshopped pictures and a video of herself pretending to have sex with different men when she clicked on the link. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) drive n technology had been used to create the fake pics and video.

I was yelling, sobbing, and furiously paging through my phone to figure out what I was seeing and reading. I was aware that this may really destroy my life, she told BBCDeepfake Porn: Netizens Are Disturbed by AI’s Use in Creating Morphed XXX Videos That Draw Questions on Consent (View Tweets).

Deepfaking is a technique wherein one uses computer editing software to project one's own face onto that of another. It frequently produces lifelike, convincing recordings that are then exploited to disseminate malevolent or false information. The individual who uploaded the deepfake photos to the website requested that other users create fictitious pornography using her. The user promised to send more pictures and information about the woman in return for the fakes.

The incident occurred in 2021, and the woman endured years of being harassed by strangers on the internet. Several social media sites, including Reddit, featured her photo. The woman decided to put up a list of men who could have been in charge of disseminating her deepfake images with her friend. She became fixated on a certain image and came to a horrifying realisation. The image in the photo was of Cambridge's King's College. She distinctly recalled having it clicked and sharing it with her best friend, Alex Woolf, as her only recipient.

Woolf went on to win BBC Young Composer of the Year in 2012, get a double first in music from Cambridge University, and make an appearance on Mastermind in 2021. She claimed she had always known him to be someone who was understanding of the difficulties experienced by women online, and that their shared love of music had allowed them to bond as teenagers.However, Woolf was the one who had been threatening to release more of the woman's original photos in return for them being converted into deepfakes. AI Safety UK: World’s Leading Artificial Intelligence Technology Companies Push Britain Government To Speed Up AI Model Evaluation, Says Report. 

Woolf was found guilty in August 2021 of obtaining images of fifteen women via social media and posting them to websites with explicit content. In addition to receiving a 20-week prison sentence, he was mandated to compensate each of his victims with one hundred pounds. Woolf told the BBC that he is "deeply sorry" for his acts and that he is "utterly ashamed" of the behaviour that resulted in his conviction.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 05, 2024 02:38 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).