interesting
My personal opinion is that while smut won't hurt anyone in of itself, LLM smut will have weird and generally negative consequences. As it will be crafted specifically for you on top of the intermittent reinforcement component of LLM generation.
The sheer amount and variety of smut books (just books) is vastly larger than anyone wants to realize. We passed the mark decades ago where there is smut available for any and every taste. Like, to the point that even LLMs are going to take a long time to put a dent in the smut market. Humans have been making smut for longer than we've had writing.
But again I don't think you're wrong, but the scale of the problem is way distorted.
That’s where the danger may lie.
Alien 2: "AI generated porn"
This is spherical cows territory though, so its only good for setting out Birds Eye view of principles.
Certainly they had neither the quantity nor ease of access that we do.
Cheap unlimited access to stuff that was always scarce during human evolution creates an 'evolutionary mismatch' where unlimited access to stuff bypasses our lack of natural satiety mechanisms.
Nevertheless, here is an example of Victorian anxiety regarding showing ankles: https://archive.org/details/amanualpolitene00pubgoog/page/n2...
It's easy to say "oh they were silly to worry about such things." But that's only because we see it from our own point of view.
Alternatively, imagine describing roads, highways, traffic congestion and endless poles strung with electrical wire all over the place to someone from the 11th century. This would sound like utter ruination of the land to them. But you and I are used to it, so it just seems normal.
Ankles -> knees -> jazz -> voting -> rock -> no-fault divorce -> Tinder -> polyamory discourse on airplanes. it's a joke, but also sort of how cultural change actually propagates. The collapse did happen, just not of morals. Of enforcement. After that, everything is just people discovering the rules were optional all along. Including money.
It's important to note that the vast majority of such books are written for a female audience, though.
Does that exist yet. I don't think so.
The man's probably thinking something up though. "Pounded in the butt by Microslop Agentic Studio 2026" has a ring.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Sentient-Lesbian-Em-Dash-Punctuation-... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Last-Algorithm-Pounded-Claimed-Sun-Ti...
Looked at the cover and saw “From Two Time Hugo Award Finalist Chuck Tingle”.
There’s no way that’s true. But I did a quick search anyway, and holy shit!
https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2016-hugo-awards/...
https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2017-hugo-awards/...
The story behind it:
https://www.quora.com/How-did-Chuck-Tingle-become-a-Hugo-Awa...
https://archive.ph/20160526154656/http://www.vox.com/2016/5/...
1. you have to "jailbreak" the model first anyway, which is what's easier to do over API
2. is average layman aware of the concept of "API"? no, unlikely. apps and web portals are more convenient, which is going to lower the bar to access LLM porn
I trust none of the llm groups to be safe with my data , erp with a machine is going to leave some nasty breadcrumbs for some future folks i bet.
Why LLM is supposed to be worse?
I’m not sure why that’s a bad thing though.
Feels like someone angry at the machines capable of generating a tailored story.
Why, the AI's after they've gained sentience, of course.
I can see why Elons making the switch from cars. We certainly won’t be driving much
while smut won't hurt anyone in of itself
And what if you are over 18, but don't want to be exposed to that "adult" content?
> Viral challenges that could push risky or harmful behavior
And
> Content that promotes extreme beauty standards, unhealthy dieting, or body shaming
Seem dangerous regardless of age.
Don't prompt it.
Because it seems to me large swaths of the population need some beauty standards
They are victimized by the fact that models are attractive, and that is "unrealistic," so they've been getting plus sized models etc.
The "extreme beauty standards" are basically just "healthy BMI."
To get that "ripped" look so many "fit" guys have, they often have to be dehydrated.
Actresses wear full faces of makeup even in apocalyptic scenarios.
It goes way beyond "just don't be fat".
The problem is inside some people's heads, and diets.
I'm not talking about models for clothes, anyway.
- OpenAI botches the job. Article pieces are written about the fact that kids are still able to use it.
- Sam “responds” by making it an option to use worldcoin orbs to authenticate. You buy it at the “register me” page, but you will get an equivalent amount of worldcoin at current rate. Afterwards the orb is like a badge that you can put on your shelf to show to your guests.
“We heard you loud and clear. That’s why we worked hard to provide worldcoin integration, so that users won’t have to verify their age through annoying, insecure and fallible means.” (an example marketing blurb would say, implicitly referring to their current identity servicer Persona which people find annoying).
- After enough orb hardware is out in the public, and after the api gains traction for 3rd parties to use it, send a notice that x months for now, login without the orb will not be possible. “Here is a link to the shop page to get your orb, available in colors silver and black.”
For me, letting people mindlessly vibecode apps and then pretend this code can serve purpose for others - this is what's truly unsafe.
Pornographic text in LLM? Come on.
Worked for gambling.
(Not saying this as a message of support. I think legalizing/normalizing easy app-based gambling was a huge mistake and is going to have an increasingly disastrous social impact).
There are also gangs making money off human trafficking? Does that make it OK for a corporation to make money off human trafficking as well? And there are companies making money off wars?
When you argue with whataboutism, you can just point to whatever you like, and somehow that is an argument in your favor.
The point being made then is that clearly there's far more to the picture than just "it's addictive" or "it results in various social ills".
Contrast that with your human trafficking example (definitely qualifies as whataboutism). We have clear reasons to want to outlaw human trafficking. Sometimes we fail to successfully enforce the existing regulations. That (obviously) isn't an argument that we should repeal them.
It's not a strange reason. IIRC, most cultures have a culturally understood and tolerated intoxicant. In our culture, that's alcohol.
Human culture is not some strange robotic thing, where the expectation is some kind hyper consistency in whatever narrow slice you look at.
We tolerate a recreational drug. Lots of people regularly consume a recreational drug and yet somehow society doesn't split at the seams. We should just acknowledge the reality. I think people would if not for all the "war on drugs" brainwashing. I think what we see is easily explained as it being easier to bury one's head in the sand than it is to give serious thought to ideas that challenge one's worldview or the law.
The point I was making is that it's not odd, unless you're thinking about human culture wrong (e.g. like its somehow weird that broad rules have exceptions).
> Particularly when the primary reason given for regulating other drugs is their addictiveness which alcohol shares.
One, not all addictive drugs are equally addictive. Two, it appears you have a weird waterfall-like idea how culture develops, like there's some kind identification of a problematic characteristic (addictiveness), then there's a comprehensive research program to find all things with that characteristic (all addictive substances), and finally consistent rules are set so that they're all treated exactly the same when looked at myopically (allow all or deny all). Human culture is much more organic than that, and it won't look like math or well-architected software. There's a lot more give and take.
I mean here are some obvious complexities that will lead to disparate treatment of different substances:
1. Shared cultural knowledge about how to manage the substance, including rituals for use (this is the big one).
2. Degree of addictiveness and other problematic behavior.
3. Socially positive aspects.
4. Tradition.
What I said I find odd is the way people refuse to plainly call alcohol what it is. You can refer to it as a drug yet still support it being legal. The cognitive inconsistency (ie the refusal to admit that it is a drug) is what I find odd.
I also find it odd that we treat substances that the data clearly indicates are less harmful than alcohol as though they were worse. We have alcohol staring us in the face as a counterexample to the claim that such laws are necessary. I think that avoidance of this observation can largely explain the apparent widespread unwillingness to refer to alcohol as a drug.
> One, not all addictive drugs are equally addictive.
Indeed. Alcohol happens to be more addictive than most substances that are regulated on the basis of being addictive. Not all, but most. Interesting, isn't it?
Maybe the confusion is yours? You think the category is "drug" but it's really more like "taboo drug."
> I also find it odd that we treat substances that the data clearly indicates are less harmful than alcohol as though they were worse. We have alcohol staring us in the face as a counterexample to the claim that such laws are necessary. I think that avoidance of this observation can largely explain the apparent widespread unwillingness to refer to alcohol as a drug.
I think you missed a pretty key point: "shared cultural knowledge about how to manage the substance, including rituals for use (this is the big one)." In the West, that exists for alcohol, but not really for anything else. People know how it works and what it does, can recognize its use, have practices for its safe use that work for (most) people (e.g. drink in certain social settings), and are at least somewhat familiar with usage failure modes. A "less harmful" thing that you don't know how to use safely can be more harmful than a "more harmful" thing you know how to use safely. None of this is "data driven," nor should it be.
I presume my GP would have no objections to regulating these things their commenter whatabouted. The inconsistency is with the legislator, not in GPs arguments.
Like if someone were to say "man we should really outlaw bikes, you can get seriously injured while using one" a reasonable response would be to point out all the things that are more dangerous than bikes that the vast majority of people clearly do not want to outlaw. That is not whataboutism. The point of such an argument might be to illustrate that the proposal (as opposed to any logical deduction) is dead on arrival due to lack of popular support. Alternatively, the point could be to illustrate that a small amount of personal danger is not the basis on which we tend to outlaw such things. Or it could be something else. As long as there's a valid relationship it isn't whataboutism.
That's categorically different than saying "we shouldn't do X because we don't do Y" where X and Y don't actually have any bearing on one another. "Country X shouldn't persecute group Y. But what about country A that persecutes group B?" That's a whataboutism. (Unless the groups are somehow related in a substantial manner or some other edge case. Hopefully you can see what I'm getting at though.)
I disagree. It is in fact not a reasonable argument, it is not even a good argument. It is still whataboutism. There are way better arguments out there, for example:
Bicycles are in fact regulated, and if anything these regulations are too lax, as most legislators are categorizing unambiguous electric motorcycles as bicycles, allowing e-motorcycle makers to market them to kids and teenagers that should not be riding them.
Now as for the whatabout cars argument: If you compare car injuries to bicycle injuries, the former are of a completely different nature, by far most bicycle injuries will heal, that is not true of car injuries (especially car injuries involving a victim on a bicycle). So talking about other things that are more dangerous is playing into your opponents arguments, when there is in fact no reason to do that.
If the point being made is "people don't generally agree with that position" it is by definition not whataboutism. To be whataboutism the point being made is _required_ to be nil. That is, the two things are not permitted to be related in a manner that is relevant to the issue being discussed.
Now you might well disagree with the point being made or the things being extrapolated from it. The key here is merely whether or not such a point exists to begin with. Observing that things are not usually done a certain way can be valid and relevant even if you yourself do not find the line of reasoning convincing in the end.
Contrast with my example about countries persecuting groups of people. In that case there is no relevant relation between the acts or the groups. That is whataboutism.
So too your earlier example involving human trafficking. The fact that enforcement is not always successful has no bearing (at least in and of itself) on whether or not we as a society wish to permit it.
BTW when I referred to danger there it wasn't about cars. I had in mind other recreational activities such as roller blading, skateboarding, etc. Anything done for sport that carries a non-negligible risk of serious injury when things go wrong. I agree that it's not a good argument. It was never meant to be.
Whataboutism is more like "Side A did bad thing", "oh yeah, what about side B and the bad things they have done". It is more just deflection. While using similar/related issues to inform and contextualize the issue at hand can also be overused or abused, but it is not the same as whataboutism, which is rarely productive.
Yes
That is terrible.
Se have to do something.
This is something.
We must do it.
It terms of harm current laws on drugs fail everyone but teetotaller who want everyone else to have a miserable life too.
You think teetotallers have miserables lives? Come on.
The majority of illegal drugs aren't addictive, and people are already addicted to the addictive ones. Drug laws are a "social issue" (Moral Majority-influenced), not intended to help people or prevent harm.
US prohibition on alcohol and to the large extent performative "war on drugs" showed what criminalization does (empowers, finances and radicalises the criminals).
Portugal's decriminalisation, partial legalisation of weed in the Netherlands, legalisation in some American states and Canada prove legal businesses will better and safer provide the same services to the society, and the lesser societal and health cost.
And then there's the opioid addiction scandal in the US. Don't tell me it's the result of legalisation.
Legalisation of some classes of the drugs (like LSD, mushrooms, etc) would do much more good than bad.
Conversely, unrestricted LLMs are avaliable to everyone already. And prompting SOTA models to generate the most hardcore smut you can imagine is also possible today.
You’re stretching it big time. The situation in the Netherlands caused the rise of drug tourism, which isn’t exactly great for locals, nor does it stop crime or contamination.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2022/11/change-starts-here-amsterda...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/24/bacteria-pesti...
As for Portugal, decriminalisation does not mean legalisation. Drugs are still illegal, it‘s just that possession is no longer a crime and there are places where you can safely shoot up harder drugs, but the goal is still for people to leave them.
Portugal's success regarding drugs wasn't about the free market. It was about treating addicts like victims or patients rather than criminals, it actually took a larger investment from the state and the benefits of that framework dissolved once budgets were cut.
It wasn't my intention
I've seen four startups make bank on precicely that.
This is also true for stuff like writing clear but concise docs, they're overly verbose while often not getting the point across.
Ironically, as these models become more “safe” and commercialized, they often lose the spark that made them valuable for creative exploration in the first place. The focus on enterprise and mass adoption seems to be driving them toward mediocrity, at the expense of individuality and depth.
I’m guessing age is needed to serve certain ads and the like, but what’s the value for customers?
ClosedAI just wants to a piece of the casual user too.
> If [..] you are under 18, ChatGPT turns on extra safety settings. [...] Some topics are handled more carefully to help reduce sensitive content, such as:
- Graphic violence or gore
- Viral challenges that could push risky or harmful behavior
- Sexual, romantic, or violent role play
- Content that promotes extreme beauty standards, unhealthy dieting, or body shaming
No. Porn has not driven even a fraction of the progress on the progress on the internet. Not even close to one.
- images - payment systems - stored video - banner advertising - performance based advertising - affiliation - live video - video chat - fora
Etc... AI is a very logical frontier for the porn industry.
b) This is exactly the kind of urban legend which tends to proliferate in human society, a cute lie which sounds believable. Like prostitution being the oldest profession, and the great wall of China being the only human made structure visible from space.
The story of the Internet is that it was developed in the mid to late 1960s by a couple of Universities in America and used by the US military to share resources across mainframes in each institution, as well as across institutions. Since then them main driver of innovation has been among universities and telecommunication companies finding optimal ways to deliver packages across telephone cables, antenna, satellites, etc.
The story of the Web is that it was developed in 1989-1991 to organize and link documents at the CERN research laboratory in Switzerland. Since then the main driver for innovations has been browser vendors competing and collaborating in developing browser technologies such that users pick their browser over the competition.
I don‘t know the story of online payment systems, but I bet the main drivers were companies opining up stores on the web and looking to replace pay by wire schemes over the telephone, and a bunch of start-ups who were able to find that market niche, developed software and sold it to those stores. The main driver of innovation here being start-ups. Porn sites and Gambling sites were no more important to that story as any other stores who sold art, golf-clubs, flight tickets, or hotel bookings.
That's ok.
> The first applications weren't porn-based.
They most definitely were, it is just that you are not aware of it. There runs a direct line from the 1-900 phone industry to the internet adult industry, those guys had money like water and they spent a fortune on these developments. Not all of them worked out but quite a few of them did and as a result those very same characters managed to grab a substantial chunk of early internet commerce.
the internet adult industry is not the same as the internet. And if you;re trying to say the internet was developed for the sake of the internet adult industry, you're sounding circular.
Porn and piracy outfits have historically adopted and pushed forward the bleeding edge of the internet. More recently that role has shifted towards the major platforms operated by BigTech. That's only natural though - they've concentrated the economics sufficiently that it makes sense for them.
But even then, take video codecs for example. BigTech develops and then rolls things out to their own infra. Outside of them it's piracy sitting at the bleeding edge of the adoption curve right now. The best current FOSS AV1 encoder is literally developed by the people pirating anime of all things. If it wasn't for them the FOSS reference encoder would still be half assed.
Unironically if they look disheveled it’s because they are indeed coomers behind closed doors.
Linus about the Tux mascot:
> But this wasn't to be just any penguin. Above all, Linus wanted one that looked happy, as if it had just polished off a pitcher of beer and then had the best sex of its life.
> Software is like sex; it's better when it's free.The "Easter Bunny" has always seemed creepy to me, so I started writing a silly song in which the bunny is suspected of eating children. I had too many verses written down and wanted to condense the lyrics, but found LLMs telling me "I cannot help promote violence towards children." Production LLM services would not help me revise this literal parody.
Another day I was writing a romantic poem. It was abstract and colorful, far from a filthy limerick. But when I asked LLMs for help encoding a particular idea sequence into a verse, the models refused (except for grok, which didn't give very good writing advice anyway.)
Believe me, the Mac deserved it.
ChatGPT is absolute garbage.