AOC reveals the horror of seeing a deeply fake porn image of herself and why she wants to crack down on AI intent on ‘physical rape and sexual assault’

Scrolling through social media while she was in the car one day in late February, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez something that would haunt her: A pornographic image of a fake digitized version of herself.

The image showed a woman generated by artificial intelligence (AI) who appeared identical to the Democrat who was forced to put her mouth on someone else’s genitals.

The image shook the New York progressive and stuck in her head all day.

“It’s a shock to see pictures of yourself that someone might think are real,” Ocasio-Cortez said. Rolling stones. ‘There are certain images that do not leave a person, they cannot leave a person.’

“It’s not as imaginary as people want it to seem,” she continued.

‘It has real, real effects not only on the people who are victims of it, but on the people who see it and consume it.’

Deepfakes – artificially generated images that appear to be real people – have proliferated in the past two years as AI tools have become cheaper and more widespread.

Deepfake pornography specifically has seen a stratospheric rise in the same time period.

In fact, deepfake pornography accounted for 98 percent of all deepfake videos posted online, according to a 2023 study by Home Security Heroes, a cybersecurity firm.

Earlier this year, megastar Taylor Swift had a similar experience to Ocasio-Cortez, when AI-generated deepfake pornography of the pop artist began surfacing on social media.

The fake adult content spread like wildfire online and quickly amassed millions of views.

Swift’s fans were outraged, and the singer-songwriter was reportedly considering taking legal action against the website that published her deepfake.

Inappropriate deepfake photos of Ocasio-Cortez circulated online earlier this year

Another deepfake of the Democrat shows her holding hands with a deepfake version of Tesla CEO Elon Musk

Deepfakes parallel, ‘the same exact intent of physical rape and sexual assault,’ Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that it’s ‘about power, dominance and humiliation.’

‘Deepfakes are absolutely a way to digitize violent humiliation against other people.’

‘It’s so important to me that people understand that this is not just a form of interpersonal violence, it’s not just about the harm done to the victim.’

“Because this technology threatens to do that on a large scale — it’s about class subjugation,” she added.

But the manipulated media abuse against Ocasio-Cortez didn’t just start.

Photoshopped photos, fake voice recordings and fabricated social media posts using her likeness have abounded since she first took office in 2019.

The difference now is that with AI tools, it’s easier than ever to create fake, lifelike photos or videos of celebrities, lawmakers, business leaders, and even news anchors doing things they would never actually do.

So Ocasio-Cortez is drafting legislation in the House to enable victims of deepfakes to take civil action against producers and distributors of such repugnant content.

“Concerns of non-consensual pornographic deepfakes have waited too long for federal law to hold perpetrators accountable,” she said in a March statement.

“As deepfakes become easier to access and create — 96% of deepfake videos circulating online are non-consensual pornography — Congress needs to act to show victims that they will not be left behind.”

“The DEFIANCE Act will allow victims to finally defend their reputations and take civil action against individuals who have produced, distributed or received digital counterfeits,” she continued.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is working on legislation with bipartisan support to give victims of deepfakes the right to sue those who ‘produced, distributed or received digital forgeries’

The bill would create a right for victims of “digital counterfeiting” to sue publishers who fake their likeness “using software, machine learning, artificial intelligence or other computer-generated or technological means.”

If the bill passes both chambers, it would be the first federal law to protect deepfake victims.

The measure also has broad bicameral and bipartisan support, with Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, RS.C. and Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., back it.

But with Congress facing a myriad of legislative priorities such as foreign aid funding and border security, it’s unclear when the DEFIANCE Act will be taken up in the House.

“People have increasingly, since the advent of smartphones, relied on the Internet as a proxy for human experience,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“And so if this becomes the primary medium through which people engage with the world, at least in this country, then manipulating that becomes manipulating reality.”