The latest job threats posed by AI? Believe it or not, it might be to porn stars

The most popular web site on the Internet is what — Amazon? Netflix? The Weather Channel?

Nope, nope and nope. It’s a porn site. And it’s not even close.

According to a scholarly paper, the top web site had 700 million more visits than Amazon, and lapped the next highest non-explicit site by more than 1 billion. And that’s just one porn site out of many. Analysts suggest between 10% and 30% of all web traffic is sans not just culottes, but sans everything.

Good old porn. We kind of forgot about that, didn’t we? Everyone gets so worked up over TikTok, which we fear like an infection running up the leg of society on its way to the heart. But let’s be real. Some teen gushing about her experience with the best lemon juicer ever is a mere flea on the big waxed back of the porn industry, which, according to The Washington Post, “is a habitual early adopter of new technology.”

That included VHS, DVDs, the internet and now Artificial Intelligence. Which is the problem.

The Post story says live porn stars are in danger of losing their jobs to AI, which it casts as less of a problem for the monthly jobless figures and more of a problem in that anyone will be able to cast anyone as the subject of a porn video, whether that particular “anyone” has consented or not.

You see the (multiple) problem(s). A beefcake such as myself would obviously be a rich target for unscrupulous females who make up an overwhelming 0.0000001% of porn consumers.

No, the sad truth is that if you get 10 guys at random in a room, at least one of them is downloading all sorts of crazy perverted stuff on his desktop. I always try to figure out which one it is. It helps pass the time when you’re in line at the airport.

So here’s the situation: While the world in general is saying “boy, we better be careful, because this AI thing could get out of hand,” the porn industry is yelling, “Everybody into the pool!”

Well, not the entire industry.

“AI can’t replace performers, and people who say that are misunderstanding what performers do,” said Heather Knox, director of operations at Elevated X, a software company that helps adult performers manage their online brands. “But this technology will catch on, and it will get abusive before it gets helpful.”

No and yes. No one is “misunderstanding what performers do.” I mean come on. If you’re suggesting that porn actresses are somehow like Meryl Streep, and AI will never be able to capture the essence, the je ne sais quoi, of lying prone on a cafeteria salad bar, I demur.

But will AI porn get abusive? No question. Unlike Democrats, porn doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying whether it’s doing the right thing. But AI porn better be careful; this could be the one thing that unites America.

Every so often in American history, a relatively small but no less determined and impossibly righteous band of activists has a stand, much like the Thermopylae 300, against the great Xercian tide of pornography.

As if we don't have enough to worry about — here come the Joro spiders

But since we lost Ed Meese, this militarism has markedly declined. The FBI started out all hot and heavy against Internet porn, but their much-publicized stings turned out to be so much wind-spitting, and today the only way you get in trouble is if you’re stupid enough to leave an explicit image up on your desktop when you leave your cubicle for an Almond Joy.

But the industry is going to have a tough time convincing mainstream America that it has a First Amendment right to market a fake porn clip featuring a local bank teller. What would be next — claiming that, like, the President of the United States has the unabridged right to commit crimes while in office? Please.

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Porn industry ready to embrace AI images