Scammers use AI to catfish men on Reddit, trick them into paying for nudes of an AI-generated woman

A bunch of lonely, but well-to-do men who frequent Reddit have been duped into buying nudes of a “beautiful woman, only to discover the woman in question was in fact created using AI and was never real in the first place.   In a “social experiment” a team of two Reddit users, wondering  if computerised photos might trick people, created a fake user account on Reddit and named it “Claudia.”   They then uploaded some pretty sensual photographs of the AI-generated woman, promising to provide nudes to anybody who privately messaged her, for a price of course. Men fall for Claudia Several users fell for this and took this as an opportunity, and DM’ed her for a few nude photos. One of them even went on to invite the AI-generated woman out for dinner, claiming that they made a six-figure salary.   **Also read: AI-generated pictures of former President Trump getting arrested send Twitter into a frenzy** All in all, the duo, who are actually computer science students made over $100 selling AI-generated nude photos, before coming clean of what they were doing. When word got out that the two computer science students were behind the account of their “ideal lady,” several of the Redditors who were constantly in her DM’s had their hopes crushed. The duo used Stable Diffusion, an AI programme that generates realistic photographs from basic language inputs, to create the images of Claudia. The developers instructed the algorithm to construct a selfie of a lady in her home “without makeup, with black hair, shoulder length hair, plain background, straight hair and hair fringe.” The students carried their experiment to the next level with some graphically detailed posts outlining Claudia’s sexual exploits. Her seductive posts drew the attention of other readers who enjoyed reading about her adventures and wanted to know more. “Claudia” started off the social experiment when she posted a selfie one day with the words, “Feeling lovely today.” Breaking their hearts “For those who aren’t informed, I’m going to crush your fantasy,” a user named MeysterA said a day after Claudia uploaded her first selfie. “This is an AI invention; if you’ve worked with AI picture models and created your own for a long enough time, you can tell. Sorry for ruining the surprise.” In the meantime, however, Claudia had already received hundreds of comments. Also read: Donald Trump 'arrested'? Vladimir Putin 'in jail'? How deepfakes are spreading misinformation online ‘You are simply stunning!!’ said MrAllGood247. She’ll make an excellent trophy wife someday.’ After MeysterA revealed the truth about Claudia’s, Redditors demanded to see her hands, because  Image-generating AIs often depict humans with more than five digits or sometimes less - AI algorithms struggle to recreate the human hand. This is when the two people, running their social experiments, came clean. The insidious side Stability AI, the London-based start-up behind Stable Diffusion, forbids users from using their technology to create ‘obscene, vulgar, lascivious, offensive and pornographic’ pictures. However, because Stable Diffusion is freely available to the public, the corporation is unable to track how the technology is utilised. Claudia may have been a silly experiment by two students, but the technology is being utilised in disgusting ways.   **Also read: Twitter to label deepfakes, deceptive media leading up to 2020 US Presidential elections** In February, reports surfaced that paedophiles are using AI to create realistic obscene photographs of youngsters, which they then share on social media. Authorities add that in other cases, perverts have gone even further, experimenting with “deep fake” technology to plaster the faces of real-life children and child actors onto nude bodies manufactured by a computer AI. The news startled campaigners and spurred child abuse groups to ask for an immediate Government reaction, with Britain’s version of the FBI, the National Crime Agency (NCA), stating that it is evaluating how sex offenders are exploiting modern technology. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.