[michaelt]

The pro-porn side has zero PR because respectable public figures don't see pro-porn advocacy as a good career move. At most, you'll get some oblique references to it.

Meanwhile, the anti-porn side has a formidable alliance:

Right-wing, religiously-motivated anti-porn activists. Left-wing, feminism-motivated anti-porn activists. Big corporate types with lots of $$$$ to spend who want their customer support chatbot to be completely SFW at all times. AI safety folk who think keeping the model on a tight leash is an ethical obligation, lest future iterations take over the world. AI vendors who are keen on the yes-it-might-take-over-the-world narrative. AI vendors who just don't want their developers having to handle NSFW stuff in work. Politicians who don't know a transformer from a diffusion model, but who've heard a chorus of worries about lost jobs and AI bias and deepfakes and revenge porn.

These people will speak up in public at the drop of a hat.

[sterlind]

on the other hand, Musk et al are building AI-powered thirst traps, like Grok's "Ani", or the accursed Replika bots (whose user base went on suicide watch when the company abruptly decided to digitally neuter their "companions.")

erotic roleplay, imo, is much less harmful than using LLMs as surrogate partners. porn and sex workers have existed for millenia. they're an outlet for sexual tension. they don't alleviate feeling lonely or provide an alternative to human companionship.

I'm worried we'll produce a generation of hikkikomoris, who eschew human connection for sycophantic machines that always listen and never breaks their heart.

[danw1979]

The founding story of Replika (c.2016 ?) sounds like someone watched Black Mirror S2E02 (2013) and didn’t quite understand it was supposed to be dystopian.

[jondwillis]

We already have a generation of hikkikomoris stepping up at bat. The ones behind them in line will be something else altogether!

[Aeolun]

Maybe you have a porn test suite for LLM’s? See which ones are fine with or capable of talking about specific topics? I believe there was something similar for willingness to discuss sciency stuff.

[mvdtnz]

It's not pro-porn and anti-porn. It's pro-porn and people who just don't think this is that important an issue. The latter massively, MASSIVELY outweighs you guys.

[michaelt]

If a person is configuring an LLM for education, to provide personalised math coaching to 10 year olds, they want an LLM that won't output anything NSFW, no matter how the user pokes and prods it. That's totally reasonable.

But if that person is applying AI safety techniques like concept erasure to remove the model's ability to output porn, is that not anti-porn in the most literal sense?