Machined Intimacies: The Remaking of Social Harm by Artificial Intelligence

• In Event: New Directions in Cultural Criminology

Abstract

We offer a critical assessment of the ways that sexual culture is likely to be influenced by artificial intelligence. Our aim is to identify these mechanisms of image production and to identify the types of social harm and crime that may result from the increasing use of AI. We argue broadly that the rapid proliferation of hybrid and synthetic visual, textual, and aural AI-Generated Content (AIGC) that splices together, or creates new content to satisfy sexual desire points to bleak possibilities. We focus on areas for criminological monitoring in which possible social harms are already evident or can be extrapolated from the rapid advance of AI as computational power increases. We argue that criminology must keep-up with the consequences of these rapid changes if emerging forms of social harm are to be understood and challenged, whether through legal or normative modes of regulation.

Authors

• Corina Medley, Kansas State University

• Rowland Atkinson, University of Sheffield