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Creator of DeepNude, an app that digitally strips women, thinks the world ‘is not ready’ for it
If, by some miracle, you still have traces of faith left in humanity six months into 2019, prepare to lose it all.
A report by Motherboard on Wednesday revealed the disturbing existence of a deepfake app called DeepNude, which strips you of your clothes to create a fake nude image of you. The catch? It only works on female bodies.
If you’re wondering, deepfake technology uses artificial intelligence to create almost-realistic imitations of people, and has previously been used to create comedic, satirical videos featuring both popular and political figures.
DeepNude however, skipped informative, funny and even controversial and went straight for disgustingly misogynistic.
“It swaps clothes for naked breasts and a vulva, and only works on images of women. When Motherboard tried using an image of a man, it replaced his pants with a vulva,” the publication revealed.
To clarify, the app takes any picture of a woman and creates an image of her in the nude, completely stripping her of every ounce of privacy she holds.
The anonymous man behind the app claims its only effective on women because most nude images sourced online are of females.
Though the programmer admitted that he contemplated the ethics behind DeepNude, he decided that people have many options to misuse and edit images anyway.
“So if someone has bad intentions, having DeepNude doesn’t change much… If I don’t do it, someone else will do it in a year,” he reportedly told Motherboad.
DeepNude’s creator took down the app, which was available for Windows and Linux, after Motherboard drew attention to it.
In a tweet announcing the take down, the mysterious man claimed he only created DeepNude for “entertainment” and that “the world is not yet ready for DeepNude”.
— deepnudeapp (@deepnudeapp) June 27, 2019
The statement suggests that he honestly believes there will come a time where it’s okay to create fake, privacy-violating, safety-threatening images of women for one’s own enjoyment.
Whatever possessed this human being to create such a deeply problematic piece of a technology is beyond me, and I don’t doubt that he has put wild ideas in the heads of others who wish to use, abuse and shame female bodies in this sickening way.
DeepNude is not controversial, it’s just wrong and discriminatory. Having a tagline that reads “the superpower you always wanted” is proof of that.
Feature image: Shereesa Moodley/Memeburn
