WTF?! If you happen to’re a gamer lending your GPU energy to a cloud computing firm referred to as Salad, there is a good likelihood it is getting used to create AI-generated grownup content material in trade for online game currencies and gadgets. Yep, you learn that proper.
In line with a report from 404 Media, Salad has discovered a intelligent strategy to massively scale up AI content material technology, together with photos, movies, and textual content, by outsourcing the heavy computational work to the highly effective GPUs present in gaming rigs. Avid gamers who signal as much as “lease” out their idle GPUs receives a commission in digital items like Fortnite cosmetics, Roblox credit score, Minecraft skins, and different gaming-related rewards by way of the Salad retailer.
It is easy cash – highly effective graphics playing cards are properly suited for the processing energy wanted to run AI fashions like Steady Diffusion to generate media. However this is the kicker: a part of the AI content material Salad is producing utilizing rented GPU energy is grownup content material.
When signing up, Salad offers customers the selection to decide out of being concerned in producing specific grownup content material. Nevertheless, the corporate’s Discord mods have reportedly claimed that by default, everyone seems to be opted out, and a few international locations do not enable opting in on account of native legal guidelines. Salad’s web site additionally means that customers who do not generate grownup content material might make much less cash.
“There is likely to be occasions the place you earn rather less if we now have excessive demand for sure grownup content material workloads, however we do not plan to make these firms the core of our enterprise mannequin,” reads an excerpt from their FAQs.
The actual shadiness emerges with Salad’s involvement with Civitai, a platform the place AI fashions are shared and pictures are generated. 404 Media notes that Civitai has beforehand allowed non-consensual porn technology, together with one notably disturbing incident the place AI-generated photos “might be categorized as little one pornography” slipped by way of from one other firm working with Civitai.
Neither Salad nor Civitai have been clear about simply how prevalent non-consensual and unlawful content material technology is among the many reams of AI porn being cranked out. However given Civitai’s observe report and the sheer scale of opaque processing energy Salad is leveraging, it is fairly doable that some messed-up stuff is being created, unbeknownst to the avid gamers whose GPUs are being rented.
It is a grim state of affairs emblematic of the bigger moral pitfalls rising in business AI growth – firms speeding to stake claims and scale with out sufficient safeguards, transparency, or accountability measures in place.
404 Media speculated that Salad marks all Steady Diffusion picture jobs as “grownup content material” by default as a result of it will possibly’t really confirm what particular person customers are producing.
So whilst you may be hoping to attain some free Fortnite goodies by lending your GPU to Salad’s cloud community, there’s an opportunity your {hardware} is churning out digital depravity behind the scenes.
Let’s simply hope extra considerate regulation emerges earlier than the metastasizing of non-consensual AI porn renders your entire sector a dumpster hearth.