This is the killer app elephant in the room. Removing the exploitation of people in porn is a net positive. There’s been attempts at ethical porn but it is a garden in a rainforest.
It's a pithy thought, but exactly what do I mean by that? Well... both things fundamentally exist within the interplay between labor, content, and the internet. We're forced to grapple with the yawning gap between abstract and economic value which the fundamental reproducibility of internet content implictly creates, not to mention the resulting potential for exploitation. This conflict forces us to reflect on unpleasant worldly realities -- how responsible is a consumer with finite resources for the fair treatment of those whose labors produce an infinite commodity?
(Intuitively it’s even worse in some ways, since performing in adult media doesn’t necessarily imply that the performer wants their physical attributes merged and re-represented in ways they would not have consented to.)
I don't know if I would describe someone whose image is subject to arbitrary manipulation per anybody's fantasies as "no longer physically at risk." There's a nontrivial amount of precedent for mentally unwell people building up parasocial relationships that they then (violently) act on; it's not inconceivable that AI would facilitate those.
But even beyond that: you're approaching this from a baseline assumption is everyone who makes adult content is "physically at risk," which probably isn't true. The reality is that it's a spectrum, and that there is probably a large demographic that isn't harmed by the content they voluntarily produce, but would be harmed by content produced from a model trained on their data.
As an intuitive example: someone who does boudoir photography or burlesque is clearly not inviting an AI to produce "harder" content using their likeness, and would be harmed by that.
I'd also imagine that there needs to some consideration applied in a legal context. Just yesterday there was a massive child porn bust which also included AI generated content[0].
[0] https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-provincial-police-arrest-...
1. Sex is a fundamentally asymmetrical power dynamic. For a conventional porn actress, it's frequently something that's done to you. These sex workers become passive actors in a transaction that directly taxes their mind & body, something very rare in other industries.
2. Sex work comes with a hefty opportunity cost. Any reputation you create for yourself in the sex industry becomes toxic once you leave -- and eventually you do have to leave it. It's a job that consumes all of your prime working & education years in exchange for little, if any, future opportunity.
3. Sex work is often, by far, the most lucrative job available to a young woman. Some young women simply have no other realistic choice to pay the bills. This in and of itself isn't a problem unique to sex work, however it does uniquely suck for sex workers because of the prior two issues. How do you stand up for yourself when the other party knows you can't walk away? How do you save for the future if you need the money today?