It would appear that artificial intelligence has won its latest battle -- this time, against desperate social media users.
Yes, with the rise of technology, home recording equipment, and subscription sites, more and more men are spending their hard-earned income on raunchy photos and videos from their favorite Instagram models or Twitch streamers.
Well, it would appear that "simping" has no limits, as reports have revealed that a group of unsuspecting Reddit users were tricked into buying nudes from a woman who doesn't even exist.
Yes, as reported by The Independent, a "woman" by the name of Claudia recently took to Reddit to share a eye-catching selfie, along with the caption: "Feeling pretty today."
Meet "Claudia". Credit: Reddit
Male Redditors being male Redditors quickly commented on the sultry snap, with one person writing "holy cr*p you are beautiful".
"You’re looking very pretty," another added, with a third commenting: "You are absolutely gorgeous!! Will make a great trophy wife someday."
And it wasn't long before Claudia started popping up on other Reddit forums - with interest in her growing more and more - to the point where she was actually able to sell some raunchy snaps for $100.
But there was just one problem... Claudia isn't real.
The Independent reports that the hyper-realistic Claudia was actually created using the artificial intelligence (AI) tool Stable Diffusion - a deep learning, text-to-image platform that is available to the public.
Credit: Reddit
And according to the people behind the scam, Claudia was able to make some successful sales before being outed by other Redditors.
"For those who aren’t aware, I’m going to kill your fantasy," one very perceptive person wrote. "This is literally an AI creation, if you’ve ever worked with AI image models and making your own long enough, you can 10000 percent tell. Sorry to ruin the surprise I guess."
By this point, the gig was up, and more and more Redditors were asking to see photos of Claudia's hands - knowing that AI struggles to create realistic-looking human hands.
Nevertheless, the people behind the scam have since stated that it was simply a "test" to see just how much modern-day AI could fool Internet users.
"You could say this whole account is just a test to see if you can fool people with AI pictures,” Claudia's creators told Rolling Stone. "You could compare it to the vtubers, they create their own characters and play as an entirely different person.
"We honestly didn’t think it would get this much traction."
Credit: Reddit
I don't know if this story has left me more terrified of how far AI has come or more sympathetic to the lonely social media users out there.
OnlyFans stars have been left concerned after an AI image generator created some scarily lifelike models, which were revealed in a now-viral snap.
Many adult creators have switched to OnlyFans in recent years after being able to rake in astronomical earnings through their paid subscriptions and custom content.
From devoted subscribers that pay a set monthly fee to those willing to drop ridiculous sums on a specially created picture or video, many content creators have made a very enviable income from the platform.
However, their future success could be at risk to AI after some surprisingly convincing computer-generated models were created, leading to fears that they could take over the market.
Images have gone viral of a group of scantily-clad women in lingerie which were created by AI software, with social media users claiming they would be able to create OnlyFans content from the characters.
One of the most time-consuming aspects of being a content creator is, well, creating the content itself - however, AI seems to open a new frontier for a vast amount of content to be churned out in next to no time.
If the figures can be programmed to pose, move, and speak realistically, the earning potential could be virtually limitless for a clever AI programmer.
With the power to create pretty much any content at the touch of a button, the concept has left some OnlyFans creators nervous that the AI ladies could end up cornering the lucrative market.
One social media user joked: "I am totally starting a fake AI generated onlyfans for gullible idiots if I fail this trading thing."
Given that AI can be completely customized, the characters could be altered to fulfill any preference, from body type to eye color, clothing, and anything else a subscriber would be looking for within reason.
One user pointed out: "Image generation technologies like deepfakes/DALL-e will completely put OnlyFans out of business e-girls will become a commodity, mass produced in an AWS cluster. You won't even know they're not real."
Another added: "this could be your cash cow: AI generated OF account manager."
Others pointed out that there are ways to tell if a photo is of a real person or computer generated, as some of the finer details often get missed.
They wrote: "The hand gives it away, but these girls look hot af. Fake onlyfans next week."
And while there may be some giveaways, the original poster added: "The point is not to pixel peep to look for signs it's fake or not. The point is they are already good enough to pass as real."
Another potential use of AI-generated models is for the fashion industry, after DMIx StudioAvatars created a series of virtual fashion models that could be used for future clothing campaigns.
ColorDigital GmbH, the company behind the images, has said brands can customize the models with any clothes and any backdrops to suit their advertising campaigns, meaning fashion models could also one day be replaced by computer-generated images.
Featured image credit: SOPA Images Limited / Alamy
Remember when Instagram purged bot accounts in 2014? Like many people, I’d built my humble following in the heady days of spammy hashtags and endless filters. I therefore lost about half of my followers and Instagram have performed other purges since. However, that doesn’t seem to have stopped a new generation of Instagram bot from invading the app.
“I’m alone and horny” the aptly-named Randee Illard tells me over direct message one afternoon. Stating that she just wants to “personal speak” on her naked cam, I’m directed to the link in her bio. Somewhere between the fixer and the main attraction, she adds “in addition, you could connect a lot of other very hot girls once I don’t online”.
This is perhaps a vague reference to the fact that many of these accounts operate on a “churn and burn” basis, often getting shut down before any real fan base can be built. Not so for Randee, though, who has 10,000 followers.
[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]
If you dare follow the link you will be met with a website which redirects to another site and then to a third site once you confirm that you want to meet hot girls in your area. The continuity lacking, the proposition has changed somewhat by this point.
With so many accounts sending the same link to new followers, this pattern would be easily picked up by Instagram’s spam filters. However, the redirects form a band of protection around the destination site, helping to prevent these bot accounts from being identified and shut down.
Almost anyone can work with these websites as an affiliate, and will usually work on a PPL (pay per lead) or PPS (pay per sale or sign-up) basis. One of the most popular adult affiliate marketing websites is CrakRevenue, where you can earn a cool $5 per email sign-up, as per the PPS model. On certain "black hat" websites, you can even purchase "packs" of images of girls - so as to appear legitimate.
[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]
“Adult entertainment is [a] 100-billion-dollar industry and, as such, it involves a lot of advertising,” explains Xavier Santana of affiliate marketing website Mobidea. “More importantly, adult entertainment isn’t limited only to sleazy and x rated stuff. Other huge sources of possible revenue? Dating and matchmaking sites, apps, and platforms. Indeed, there are a whole lot of affiliate marketing verticals to choose from!” He adds: “Men visiting these sites generally want to interact with that male fantasy of what women are like, which is of course a far cry from the real thing.”
Clearly, there is an entire industry centred on getting people to these websites and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s usually not people from the websites themselves posing as permanently aroused 21-year-old women.
“As you might expect, the adult niche is a bit of a high-risk, high-reward game,” Santana muses. “If you’re an adult affiliate, you know the playing field is rife with hackers, scammers, and other no-gooders, but a brave and intrepid soul can really make a fortune here.”
[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]
“Not only can these guys target you and potentially damage your revenue,” he adds, “the whole niche has a bit of a bad reputation (of course this goes more for porn sites than dating sites) so it’s a bit of an uphill battle to create a reputable, stable site that will work perfectly.
“If you do your homework and pay attention,” Santana concludes, “the adult niche in affiliate marketing can be an awesome business opportunity that can turn into ridiculous amounts of money on a fairly modest budget.”
However, the proliferation of bots on the internet is nothing new. Anyone old enough to recall SmarterChild on MSN Messenger will have fond memories of bizarre conversations with a chatbot which seemed like a real person but was lacking that one thing that makes us human - emotion.
[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]
It is strange to think that there are now thousands of such “bots” mimicking human behaviour so successfully that they are sometimes thought to be real people. Working specifically with Twitter users, a piece of software called BotOrNot aims to reveal whether these purported people are, in fact, real.
“It doesn’t take much time to distinguish fake Twitter followers from real, even if you have thousands of them,” the BotOrNot website explains. “Nowadays, there are proven bot detection technologies that help you with this task. BotOrNot is a perfect Twitter bot detector that able to spot fake followers on Twitter with high [levels] of accuracy.”
“Moreover, with the help of BotOrNot you can not only recognise fake followers but unfollow them immediately on our website,” they continue. “Not sure if [a] user is real or fake? Check the account with BotOrNot and leave only effective audience. Stop collecting fake followers.”
[[imagecaption|| Credit: BotOrNot]]
Of course, many of the fake or “bot” accounts on social media platforms don’t have any form of conversational software built in. But it’s the ones that do which are by far the most convincing.
“Between 10 and 11% of the users involved in conversations around the election are flagged as bots,” explained Professor Emilio Ferrara to the Guardian last year. As principal investigator in machine intelligence and data science at the University of Southern California, Ferrara knows what he’s talking about. “That is significantly less than in 2016 when it was something like 20%. The pessimistic interpretation is that our bot-detection systems are not picking up the more sophisticated bots, which look just like humans even to the eyes of the algorithms.”
Needless to say, the best advice is to steer clear of any automated-seeming account on Instagram. If you’re wondering whether the person you’re speaking to is human or not, you can ask Turing test-style questions like: “Is the difference between a fish purely that one of its legs are both the same?” Of course, if there really is a person on the other end, they might be a bit freaked out.
We now live in a world where "sexting" is a common occurrence. Whether you have a partner, you're dating, or you're all alone, sad and bored in your bedroom and eating copious amount of pizza, the likelihood is that you've "sexted" someone at some point in your life.
For those of you who are unaware what sexting is, it's like having sex, but via text (AKA the most millennial thing of all time). According to a study by online security company McAfee, 50 per cent of Americans admit to regularly sexting, which is a hell of a lot of people.
However, not everyone is into it, and even if they are, not everyone wants to sext all of the time. This was the case for one user of Reddit, who decided to play a pushy "sexter" at his own game. Reddit user TheOwlAndTheFinch appeared on the Creepy PMs forum to share her experience in shutting down a pushy male in the most hilariously savage way.
Titling the post as: "He's been begging for weeks to do a 'sexy roleplay' with me. I finally said yes. I think he regrets everything now", The user puts a series of screenshots showing their conversation - and her way of trolling the creep is simply genius.
Right, I don't know if it's just me, but it's pretty clear from the get-go that this guy is an absolute creep. I mean, just look at that opening line: "*looking youu deep into the eyes* lets do this." Urmm no, lets not do this. Unsurprisingly, the Redditor is already playing this guy at his own game, with sarcastic clap backs foreboding what is to come. Don't worry readers, it gets a whole lot better.
I mean, how did this guy not realising he was being trolled when she said there's two kitchens in the house? Also, how much setting the scene does this guy do? Maybe I've been doing it wrong my entire life, but I didn't think sexting involved writing a novel together before getting to the juicy bit? Understandably, the sexter in question doesn't take kindly to being trolled and seems to get pretty wound up.
The best bit about this is that in his sexual fantasy, as in, in his wildest dreams, they are getting down and dirty in a condo in Portland. Romantic, right? While most of us would maybe conjure up images of a swanky hotel in the Bahamas, with velvet bedding etc, this guy is just getting it on in a condo in Portland: a city which is more famous for bridges than anything else.
Weirdly, another user claims to have spoken to the same guy; and in a bizarre twist, their sexting also focused around the city of Portland as well.
So there you have it guys and gals, next time you want to get rid of a pushy sexter, just take them down to everyone's favourite Swedish department store via text, that should shut them up.
"Hey Mom, how did you meet Dad?" "He sent me an unsolicited photo of his junk on Tinder." You don't hear that conversation very often. Yet men continue trying to seduce women by sending pictures of their schlongs - "pelfies," if you will. Sure, every woman in the past found it disgusting, and it was a total conversation-killer, but maybe this time it'll work!
Whenever women check their text messages, the forecast is sunny, with a 50% chance of dick pics. Some know exactly how to do deal with creepy, disrespectful messages, and have delivered some brutal clapbacks. For example, one young woman received an unsolicited pelfie, and then sent it to the guy's grandma. Then she sent a text explaining that she was "reeling" from the "deplorable" image, and wanted to "prevent it from happening to anyone else."
If you think regular women get a lot of junk mail - in the form of male junk - just imagine what it's like for porn stars. Since they have sex in their line of work, most men don't have any inhibitions about sending them sexual images. Adult entertainer Ginger Banks is sick and tired of seeing D's in her DM's, so she came up with a genius response.
On Twitter, Ginger shared a screenshot of an exchange she had with a harasser. After he sent the lewd photo, she responded, "Did you just me a picture of a child penis?" He replied, "WTF no. What's wrong with U." She texted back, "It looks like a child penis. I'm reporting it." Then she sent a screenshot of the CyberTipline Report, threatening to report him for child pornography.
The exchange is hilarious. Ginger mocks the size of his penis, totally emasculating him. Then she scares the hell out of him by threatening to report him for child pornography. Twitter users loved her response, sharing hilarious stock responses of their own.
Other Twitter users pointed out she didn't actually report him. She just threatened to report him. (Filing a false report would be abusing the tip line.)
Well, as long as men keep sending women unsolicited images of their junk, women will keep coming up with hilarious, brutal responses shutting them down. But what are we supposed to do, stop sending explicit images? I don't think so. Next time it's definitely going to work.
A woman has taken to social media to share her perfect response for dealing with unsolicited d*** pics from men - and it is truly savage.
If you're one of the fortunate people to never have a man's uninvited member turn up in your DMs, let me briefly explain the premise.
Occasionally, some men out there like to send a photograph of their genitals to people they view as hopeful partners in the hope of achieving sexual conquests. Now, I don't know the exact statistics, but I can only assume this fails 99.99% of the time.
[[imagecaption|| Credit: PA Images]]
Nevertheless, having some dude's junk land in your inbox can be a rather annoying (to put it mildly), and one woman decided to take appropriate steps to make sure one guy wouldn't be doing it again.
Sharing her encounter to Twitter, a woman by the name of Alexandra - who uses the handle @alexandrakuri - shared screenshots of her replied to the eager gentleman, along with the caption: "absolutely thrilled with this he’s s**te himself".
In the screenshots, the man sends a picture of his power source, along with the message: "Hi. My c**k can we talk" - along with the image of a smiling emoji.
But @alexandrakuri wasn't smiling, and so decided to send a message ensuring this would be the last d*** pic the man ever sends.
Acting as an auto-reply, she typed: "AUTOREPLY: We have detected the transmission of unsolicited pornographic images of potentially illegal nature [code:36489-a]" - a very nice touch there.
The retort continues: "Your device's IP address has been forwarded to the police department pending an investigation.
"If you think this is a mistake, reply STOP".
I won't lie, this is a truly inspired response, and it certainly fooled the wannabe lothario, as he replied "STOP" twice.
In a follow-up tweet, Alexandra revealed that the fella had deleted his Twitter account:
A second added: "I don’t understand why dudes think that s**t actually works or is flattering in the LEAST. It’s like 'hi my names Chad here’s my d**k' like NOOO DUDE NOO. I commend you for helping out us ladies my dear".
.webp_vBqgAR?tr=cr-242.0.1293.1051,f-webp,q-70,w-100)
.webp_lli6Ty?tr=cr-74.9.445.380,f-webp,q-70,w-100)
.jpg_I4Ebof?tr=cr-0.338.2730.3068,f-webp,q-70,w-100)
.webp_lli6Ty?tr=cr-74.9.445.380,f-webp,q-70,w-1024)
.jpg_I4Ebof?tr=cr-0.338.2730.3068,f-webp,q-70,w-1024)
