The Sobering Prospect of “Adult AI”

Samuel D. James has a thought-provoking article over on his Substack that I’d like to interact with a bit. His main point is that we need to prepare for a change in tactics in the fight against the scourge of pornography because one of the main arguments is about to be made largely obsolete:

For many years, one of the key arguments anti-porn crusaders have used is that pornography objectifies and degrades women. Theologically speaking, this is absolutely true. Yet it is not been an effective argument, either in convincing lawmakers to put more legal restrictions on porn, or in persuading individuals to resist it.

I agree. It is a true and important argument, but not a terribly effective one. In my own writing on this subject, I have used this line of argument in a limited way and focused more on wider societal effects and on the personal spiritual effects. James goes on to argue that the church needs to shore up other lines of argumentation in anticipation for the day when pornography is available which does not make use of human actors, but uses AI to generate content. Again, I agree that Christian leaders ought to have a full-orbed view of the harms of pornography, going far beyond a focus on the harm done to those who produce it. But I think Samuel James overstates his case somewhat, and I’d like to lay out a couple of counter-arguments in the spirit of friendly pushback and in the interest of sharpening our thinking on this difficult but vital issue.

Make no mistake: this is no academic debate. This topic forms the battleground where millions of men (and women) are being ensnared by incredibly powerful temptations and progressively transformed into despicable moral cretins.

So while I agree with the main thrust of the argument, I have two pushbacks to offer.

The first regards this statement: “The next era of pornography will almost certainly feature no humans at all, but lifelike computer-generated images that have no souls, no legal status, and no inhibitions.” I think this will be partially true, but perhaps not nearly as much as the author thinks. Why? Because there is a difference that the user will quickly discern between the real and the artificial, and just like the completely CGI-fabricated fight scenes in all the new Marvel movies feel so flat and weightless and unsatisfying, so the novelty of the AI stuff will probably not satisfy the perverted minds and lusts of the users. There is a dark corner of the porn-addicted soul that not only wants to be titillated, but wants to know that this scene really happened.

The second is with respect to this part of the last paragraph: “When there’s no one to exploit, there is still God to offend. When there is no one to be trafficked, there is still God who sees.” True enough about God being offended and God seeing, but the dynamic of sin in the human heart is always towards deeper involvement. So even if we grant that AI-porn will displace most of the Western human actors, the one-way ratchet of this sin-slavery will pull the user towards real-life experience of their dark fantasies, and this will sustain or even increase the tragic demand for trafficked humans to serve as victims to those fantasies.

Related to this, one must ask why OnlyFans grew to be so popular despite an inexhaustible amount of free pornography already available on the web. The answer to this question weakens James’ claim that “porn’s future is post-human.” The lonely lust-addled men clearly find some added value to the OnlyFans experience such that they are happy to part with eye-watering amounts of money. And what is that value? My guess would be the thin veneer of human connection that OnlyFans apparently markets as its main appeal. There is some possibility of direct communication and access. I have my doubts that even the best “Adult AI” offering will be able to replicate the particular thrill this provides.

So I agree that the church needs to articulate a strong and robust argument against porn that does not focus so much on the damage done to the people featured in it. This will be critically important when the so-called “victimless AI porn” becomes even more mainstream. But I am not as optimistic as Samuel James that all this will really lower the demand for content featuring real humans and real bodies, nor that this will result in any decrease in human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Despite my slight disagreements here, I really appreciate Samuel James’ writing both at his Substack and in his recent book, Digital Liturgies. In fact, I’m very pleased to say I have an enthusiastically positive review of it slated for publication in the March/April (print and online) issue of Canada’s biggest evangelical publication, Faith Today. I’ll link to that when it goes live.

_{Note: The core of this post was first written as a comment on the Substack article and then expanded here.}