Note that NSFW AI isn't available just to everyone and their mother, this in no small part due to the regulatory, ethical and technical difficulties. The number of AI-driven platforms that support adult or sensitive content and are accessible in countries with the most stringent internet regulations is just 45%, according to a Statista report published in 2023. NSFW AI — both highly graphic HAI and more mainstream systems such as Pornhub's lookalike models that skirt the line of what counts, culture-wise, must straddle not only ethical lines related to content moderation, privacy considerations like ownership over likeness or safety concerns regarding sex crimes. Creative responses are a form of resistance: China and India, for example, have some of the strictest internet censorship laws in place to block issuance entire swaths of NSFW content (like AI-based services).
Regulation is one of the main walls standing in between making NSFW AI widely accessible. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enacted in the European Union mandates that AI systems need to follow clear-cut rules on personal data and especially sensitive information. This is leading to certain countries under GDPR not having NSFW AI available as companies face fines of up to €20 million or 4% of annual global revenue for non-compliance. Although NSFW AI platforms take efforts to comply with these laws by enacting strict data privacy and content moderation policies, they unfortunately restrict either the reach or effectiveness of such services in certain regions.
As Elon Musk put it: “Biggest impediments to the future of AI are stuck people and regulations. This mirrors the challenges NSFW AI is currently facing in going global. It does face significant restrictions since governments, platforms and developers are always trying to find middle ground between allowing freedom of speech while keeping up with safety standards — leading in bans or restricted availability based on local laws and platform policies.
At a more basic level, part of what could limit the spread of NSFW AI is simply that it requires quite powerful systems to be able to operate. Nvidia says AI models such as GPT-4 need a lot of processing power, which is usually provided by cloud servers that can crunch through petaflops of data each second. While the large-scale platforms can easily afford to run such NSFW AI effectively, smaller websites with fewer resources and countries that don't have a tech infrastructure cannot do so. This means that NSFW AI becomes even more less pervasive and now is restricted to regions or platforms with the resources maintain performance of this type of rated ai.
NSFW AI systems can be expensive to develop and maintain in terms of cost. McKinsey found that nearly one-third more is spent on content moderation and compliance using AI models for sensitive content, however. However, this significantly higher price makes it unsustainable for smaller platforms or startups to create any NSFW AI services which inevitably results in most of them being only available for use by big companies that have the financial ability to comply with regulatory requirements and taking on risks.
Nevertheless, there are some platforms that do provide access to a slim variety of NSFW AI. Like of OnlyFans — Platforms that succeed by making most of the AI-driven interactions at lower cost, but within a content normckså. OnlyFans saw 75% better than previous user engagement once it started doing this in 2020, with AI delivered like an infinitely configurable API to satisfy the same fundamental ruleset against all that local content requirements weirdness. Unfortunately, these platforms regularly limit access to users under certain age restrictions and geographic requirements etc. making them less than universally available people outside of the geographical areas can judged on where they live or how old are!!
NSFW AI faces a similar problem, but with far more nuance than it initially appears. Standards and societal norms in some regions can make it tough to market or even produce NSFW AI, as people tend to be more reserved with these topics. Such an arrangement would create a patchwork quilt where adult-oriented AI might be easily accessible in some countries, borderline illegal or just about barred from others.
Issues and disagreements such as these are circumnavigated by platforms like nsfw ai who provide smart access based on regional laws as well as platform capabilities. The availability of NSFW AI is unlikely to evolve much as rules change and technology gets better, constrained by a parts catalog drawn up in part by the law.