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Twitch Streamer Caught Viewing AI-Generated ‘Deepfake’ Porn Of Female Streamers

   DailyWire.com
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Paulus Rusyanto / EyeEm via Getty Images

A popular video game livestreamer issued an apology after he allegedly paid for AI-generated pornography of fellow internet personalities.

Brandon Ewing, who goes by the screen name Atrioc, posted a tearful apology video to his Twitch channel in which he admitted to paying for AI-generated “deepfake porn” of fellow streamers Pokimane, QTCinderella, Sweet Anita, and Maya Higa. “Deepfakes” have been around for several years now: AI software has also come under fire for generating sexualized images of women, among other illicit material.

The controversy began on Monday, when Atrioc inadvertently opened his browser window; one of the tabs in the browser had nude pictures of female Twitch streamers on it.

In his apology video, Atrioc said he was reading information and learning about artificial intelligence online. He then admitted that he was browsing on PornHub, when he saw an ad for the site and clicked on it. The site was subscription-based, and he paid the subscription in order to access the site. “I got morbidly curious and I clicked something,” he said. “It’s gross and I’m sorry… It’s so embarrassing.” He added that his actions were not a “pattern of behavior.”

The streamers whose fake images were posted to the site were incensed at being sexualized online.

“This story was how I found out that I’m on this website,” Sweet Anita tweeted. “I literally choose to pass up millions by not going into sex work and some random cheeto encrusted porn addict solicits my body without my consent instead. Don’t know whether to cry, break stuff or laugh at this point.”

“[S]top sexualizing people without their consent,” Pokimane added. “[T]hat’s it, that’s the tweet.”

“I want to scream,” QTCinderella wrote on Twitter. “Stop. Everybody f***ing stop. Stop spreading it. Stop advertising it. Stop. Being seen ‘naked’ against your will should NOT BE A PART OF THIS JOB.” She went one step further in a video on Twitch reacting to the video, telling the owner of the site that she plans to sue him.

In a second statement posted to TwitLonger, Atrioc said that he would help finance the cost of taking down the offending content and the legal fees for affected streamers. In order to dedicate his time fully to the issue, he also announced that he would be stepping away from content creation and OFFBRAND, his content creation studio. “This will be the last time you hear from me for a while,” he wrote. “I’d rather you see my actions. I will try my absolute hardest to combat the damage I caused.”

The individual behind the deepfake images has taken them all down, and replaced his website with a long apology for creating them in the first place, according to a screenshot of the site shared on Reddit.

Deepfake technology, which uses AI to map someone’s face onto another person’s body, has been around since at least 2018. Even porn websites like PornHub have banned the practice on the grounds that such videos are non-consensual. The technology has advanced and proliferated much since then, which has only exposed its unsavory parts. The popular AI art software Lensa AI was at the center of controversy in December after multiple reports showed that it generated nude images of users, even when users offered it modest photos or even headshots.

Generating non-consensual nudity is one of several morally illicit activities that AI software has been part of, including: plagiarizing assignments; passing law, medical, and business school exams; creating a computer-generated rapper; and generating voice clips of celebrities saying offensive things.

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