In the age of artificial intelligence, many argue that while AI brings democratized access to mass information to many, it also poses a great threat to society. Specifically, the fear of the unknown. There is widespread fear that this technology could become an uncontrollable force capable of outsmarting humanity. But for countless women like myself, that fear is already a reality. Not because AI has outsmarted humanity, but because of how this technology has made it dangerously easy to fabricate a woman’s digital likeness, steal their voices, and worst of all: weaponize our bodies for exploitation and profit. This technology is known as a deepfake, which is an “artificial image or video (series of images) generated by a special kind of machine learning called deep learning,” originally created to generate hyper-realistic media for entertainment and artistic purposes (UVA, 2024). Deepfakes have evolved into an extremely dangerous territory, now being utilized to manipulate a person’s digital likeness to create fabricated pornographic images and videos that can be used to harass and exploit individuals.  

On May 14th, 2025, during a parliament session in New Zealand, education spokesperson Laura McCure shocked her colleagues by holding up an explicit, nude photo of herself. The catch? The image was artificially generated by a free application using the Google search engine. McCure explained that it took her less than five minutes to create this deep fake nude of herself, “Scaringly it was a quick Google search for the technology of what's available, when you type in ‘deepfake nudity,’ hundreds of sites appear,” (McCure, 2025). McCure's demonstration was not meant to scandalize, it was a wake-up call to highlight how accessible and easy this technology is. The truth is that to procure this image, all McCure had to do was tick a box, not enter an email, not verify an age, just one click of a button. (McCure, 2025). Picture this: you post a photo of yourself on social media and in less than five minutes, someone online uses AI to create a deepfake pornographic image and replies to the post with it. You become powerless. As McCure powerfully demonstrated, the problem isn’t the technology itself, but how easily it can be weaponized to degrade and exploit victims. Additionally, there are no current consequences due to the lack of current regulation and unless lawmakers catch up, anyone can be a target. 

McCure’s extremely brave speech illuminated that this is not isolated or rare, it is a daily crisis for women across the globe. Even the most powerful and recognizable public figures aren’t exempt to this digital abuse. One of the most prominent cases of these deepfake pornographic attacks is against billionaire superstar, Taylor Swift. According to BBC News, in early 2024, non-consensual deepfake pornographic images of Taylor Swift garnered over 47 million views across popular social media platforms like X (Twitter), TikTok, Instagram and Facebook (Rahman-Jones, 2024). Terrifyingly, the biggest popstar in the world could not just simply “take them down,” (Graham, 2024). Thousands of fans had to report each image in hopes that the social media platform would eventually take them down (Graham, 2024). However, this is not an isolated event for popular female celebrities. CBS has reported that hundreds of highly sexualized deepfakes of celebrities such as Ariana Grande, Scarlett Johansson and Maria Sharpova have been shared to social media, racking up thousands of views without intervention (Lyons, 2025). 

What is even scarier is that these victims are no longer just popular celebrities. Anyone with access to the internet can potentially target any woman, young girl, or vulnerable individual leaving them helpless and emotionally assaulted. This degrading act is happening in high schools all around the world, every single day targeting new women or young girls. During McCure’s speech, her colleague Vaughan Couillault explained, “It’s not as low level and as simple as the perpetrator might think it is. It’s not cheap entertainment, it’s life-damaging work,”(McCure, 2025). The psychological impact of these images cannot be understated, especially for young girls. McCure also bluntly shared a quote from Catherine Abel Pattinson, an employee for Netsafe (New Zealand’s online safety organization), “Every day we answer the phone and we have suicidal people on the other end because stuff like this has been sent and it's not them,” (McCure, 2025). This reality is devastatingly clear throughout highschools, colleges and universities around the world. McCure highlighted stories from two local schools, where over fifty female victims spoke out anonymously, with one leading to self-harm as a coping mechanism for this trauma. 

This leads me to wonder what possible justice can be done to prevent this horrible technology from advancing? 

Unfortunately, there cannot be justice or even progress without legislative intervention. Current policies worldwide have not caught up to the reality of this technology. Currently, deepfakes exist in a dangerous gray area, with countries all over the world allowing artificial generation of pornography to proliferate on a widespread scale without regulation (Narayanan, 2024). As artificial intelligence begins to evolve at unprecedented levels, this deepfake technology will continue to grow stronger, widening the gap between technology and regulation. Without immediate legislative intervention to shut down every single website that allows and facilitates deepfake abuse, and laws put into place to govern usage, perpetrators will remain empowered to exploit, abuse and harm women and young girls without consequences.