Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out about her own horrific experience of becoming a victim of AI-generated deepfake porn – warning that it’s “not as imaginary as people want to make it out to be.”
The Queens Democrat said she was flipping through X while talking about legislation with her aides in a car in February when she came face-to-face with the AI-generated image of herself performing a sexual act.
“It’s a shock to see images of yourself that someone might think are real,” Ocasio-Cortez told Rolling Stone. “As a survivor of physical sexual assault, it adds a level of dysregulation. This brings back the trauma, as I try to… in the middle of a fucking king meeting.
The mental image of her deepfake version placing her mouth on another’s genitals stayed with Ocasio-Cortez for the rest of the day.
“There are certain images that don’t leave a person, they can’t leave a person,” she confessed to the magazine, citing scientific research that says it’s difficult for a human brain to separate distressing images. seen on a reality phone. , even if they are known to be false.
“It’s not as imaginary as people want to make it out to be,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “It has real effects, not only on the people who experience it, but also on those who see it and consume it. And once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it.
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The harm caused by the “digitalization of violent humiliation” is akin to physical rape, according to the MP.
“Children are going to kill themselves because of this,” she said. “People are going to kill themselves because of this.”
Ocasio-Cortez, 34, is now leading a House version of the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act of 2024, which would make it easier for victims of non-consensual AI pornography to sue publishers. , distributors and consumers of X. classified digital counterfeits.
New York Post
