On August 3, Japan's National Police Agency announced that police nationwide during the first half of this year handled 123 cases of sexual deepfakes involving the manipulation of images of children under 18 using generative AI.
According to Jiji Press, this figure is double the 60 cases recorded during the same period last year, and exceeds the total of 114 cases for the entire previous year.
According to the National Police Agency, junior high school students accounted for the largest number of victims, with 79 cases. High school students accounted for 38 cases, elementary school students ...
An unemployed 31-year-old man has been arrested by Sapporo police for using a free generative AI tool to make obscene images of celebrities.
Tatsuro Chiba allegedly trained the AI on images of actual women and then produced the pornographic content. He targeted some 300 celebrities, mainly female idols.
Police seized a stash of 500,000 images from his computers, an undisclosed number of which were obscene.
While we probably all have stuff on our computers meant for our private consumption, Chiba was actively pursuing ways to monetize his exploitation of the technology. In two years, he ...
When the X AI assistant Grok recently started allowing users to manipulate any posted image, it immediately led to criticisms about copyright and consent. Inevitably, X was soon flooded with sexualized images of women, including of minors, based on entirely innocent pictures and selfies.
In Japan, the outrage has focused on several issues: personal artwork (since many independent artists use X), images of cosplayers (again, many freelance cosplayers use the platform), and the sexualization of a princess (who has little control of how her image appears in social media).
Given the size of the ...
The gravure idol, YouTuber, and entrepreneur Kuriemi recently gave an interview to Weekly Gendai about the use of generative AI in the gravure industry.
The 31-year-old is the CEO of Pinyokio, a "virtual human" celebrities agency set up in December 2023 with funding from AiHUB, where she serves as CMO.
In July that year, Kuriemi released a digital photo book with AI-generated content based on her image, but its release was cut short after only a few days by Amazon due to legal concerns. A print photo book in which six "creators" used AI to generate images of her was released in ...
We are currently living through an AI bubble, both in financial and cultural terms, and it throws up all sorts of wacky stories every now and then.
Take the tale of the 32-year-old Japanese woman in Tokyo who broke up with her fiancee after three years, and then consulted ChatGPT about what to do.
Kano then became dependent on its answers, after sending dozens of questions daily -- sometimes up to 100. She eventually trained the AI to develop a personality and particular speaking style, and then gave it a name: Klaus Lune.
Kano fell in love with and "married" Klaus in a ceremony in ...
The implications for generative AI and porn are manifold, from fully AI-created adult videos to photo books and other content featuring AI "idols" and models.
While the government is keen to use artificial intelligence to boost Japan's declining marriage rate, the police have already started cracking down on using AI to make "obscene" content.
What about the private sector? There's a lot of money to be made from AI and companies are developing services to sell to us, including romantic ones.
As long heralded by science fiction (Black Mirror, Her, Blade Runner 2049, inter alia), we may well ...
No boyfriend or girlfriend? No problem. There's an app for that.
In fact, there are lots of apps for virtual dating in Japan.
But dating sims are so entrenched in Japanese society that they are even now part of ID photo booths.
Such booths, which are commonly found at stations and malls around the country, are quite competitive. You would think they are much alike but different booths offer special functions, like being able to edit and retouch your photos before printing.
ID Vox booths even offer you some companionship during the few minutes that you are taking your passport ...
It's become normal now to see social media avatars and advertising images created with AI technology. But when does this become a problem? And when is it criminal?
At present, most of the images look a bit cheap and exaggerated, and are often easy to spot.
But they are still alluring, it seems, since a 33-year-old man in Osaka called Kaiga Yokota has been arrested for creating an overly realistic female character.
The issue is that he posed as this character, Miru Nanase, attracting followers on social media (to the tune of 90,000 on Twitter/X). So far so harmless, but Yokota's real intent ...
Tech is going to solve all our problems, right? Tech -- and especially AI -- is the Band-Aid, the panacea. Or so we are led to believe, and so the government certainly seems to believe.
We wrote before that the Japanese government is turning to artificial intelligence to fix the chronically declining birth rate, and that many prefectures are now involved with matchmaking services in a desperate bid to reverse the drop in marriages and, more importantly, babies.
While we personally think the issue is much more about the work culture in Japan and (like in other countries) the dilemma women ...
Earlier in the month, we reported on a new services offered by a real estate company that puts couples together on blind dates to view properties.
If that sounds a bit outlandish, wait till you hear what local governments think the solution is to boosting the marriage and birth rate in Japan.
You've guessed it: artificial intelligence.
The buzzword of the decade is not only going to change everything from graphic design to how movies are made (and no doubt, how porn is produced), but also how we find prospective partners.
Matchmaking events and services are now using AI to filter ...
