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Comment by Tronno | Hacker News Reader

I have trouble imagining a reasonable person being interested in porn containing a minor government official, let alone being confused as to its authenticity. I can't even see reasonable people being interested in genuine celebrity sex tapes.

The audience for that seems limited to malicious weirdos who already have zero respect for the victim. Any influence it might have on their opinions seems irrelevant.

Of course, this has no bearing on the personal violation one feels when exposed to this sort of abuse. But for deepfake porn to somehow influence public perception is hard for me to grasp. Are there any examples of real reputational damage stemming from this?

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to say nothing of the personal feeling of violation, the individual in question seems to be a relatively young and ambitious individual, likely harboring aspirations for a more prominent political career.

The potential consequences of such a revelation that “they might’ve been a pornographic actor” could give rise to a future scandal during an election. Even the slightest insinuation of involvement in the adult entertainment industry can inflict significant damage, particularly for women.

We’re actually seeing AI-generated imagery being used more and more in political propaganda (eg https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/25/technology/ai-elections-d...). It’s not unreasonable to think this will become a major point in a future election, even if it hasn’t yet.

> such a revelation that “they might’ve been a pornographic actor”

I ask again, is there any evidence that such allegations have ever been taken seriously?

I can't see fake porn having any reach, except amongst low-IQ consumers of internet trash, who are not only susceptible to obvious propaganda, but are already politically aligned against the victim.

Other AI generated content may have more impact, but that's another conversation.

> I can't see fake porn having any reach, except amongst low-IQ consumers of internet trash, who are not only susceptible to obvious propaganda, but are already politically aligned against the victim.

You seem to have made your mind and no further discussion is possible.

If you're wondering whether people spreading juicy and false rumors about candidates' sexual matters have had an impact on election outcomes, the answer is definitely yes. Maybe this specific type of sexual rumor hasn't had a major effect, but considering that this technology is still relatively new, it's not something to be too complacent about.

On the topic of people believing outlandish things on whimsy evidence: Plenty of people were convinced Hillary Clinton was running an underground child pornography ring in a pizza basement based on paintings hung in someone’s house.

Maybe they were all politically aligned against her from the start, or maybe they weren’t and it affected the 2016 election. How would we know?

One can do polls to establish eg. "do you believe this story", "did you support Clinton before this", "did this change your voting preference"...

While no poll is 100% accurate, as long as you make it statistically significant and introduce a good control (say multiple fake and real stories, with some of them positive too), you'll get good signal and ability to say exactly if it did affect the election.

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