I read an article on Mashable last week that made me so angry I had to seethe in silence for a while before I could write about it in a way I felt was responsible and appropriate. Sometimes, I'm just so tired. So utterly bone tired of the world we live in today and what people are using AI for.

Have you heard of Secret Desires? It's a website where adults have "spicy" chats with AI companions. It's browser-based, like Character.ai, except it's for adults only. But hey, they're adults, right? If they want to have spicy chat with an AI, they can do whatever they want, right?

That's the reasoning Sam Altman used when he announced that ChatGPT is introducing Spicy Chat with age verification this December.

Adults should be treated like adults, right?

Let adults do what they want, right?

If you go to the Secret Desires site, they have a lineup of companions to choose from. You can browse men, women, or both. The companions range from realistic to anime, aged eighteen and up. If you don't see a girlfriend or boyfriend you like the look of, no problem — you can make your own.

I saw "make your own" and thought of the avatar creation process. Pick your hair color, pick the eye color. Sometimes, I'm stunned to realize how naïve I can be. It's like no matter how much I learn, I'm still capable of being stunned by the way some humans treat each other.

Secret Desires had a data leak that left nearly two million images and videos exposed. Apparently, they'd left their cloud storage containers vulnerable and open to the public. It was discovered by 404 Media.

Going through almost two million images and videos, the journalists learned a lot about how users were actually using the site.

Know what they found?

A whole lot of unsuspecting victims.

Secret Desires launched in early 2024 and has been around for almost two years. Until recently, they had a feature called face swap. Yes, that means what you think. Users could take a photo of any woman and "swap" it to become their AI companion's face. Their adult companion.

Secret Desires companions can chat, send texts, videos, and voice messages, or even talk on the phone.

Going through the files, 404 Media found sexual images of everyone from famous women celebrities and entertainers to women who are not public figures in any way and don't have much of a digital footprint.

They'd see an innocent photo like a selfie or a social media photo. And then? The AI rendered explicit photos and videos made from that photo.

People could upload whatever photos they wanted.

Think about that, okay?

They found a photo of a state representative giving a speech in public, photos of women taken years ago with old flip phones and Blackberries, screenshots from Snapchat and more. Just random photos of women.

One photo was of a young woman proudly posing with her university degree. Some of the file names were the full first and last names of the women.

One woman who has no digital footprint had her high school yearbook photo turned into porn. Some of the files appeared to be "very young" people and had file-names that included terms like "17-year-old."

There's only one reason all those photos were in the "face swap" folder. Secret Desires users uploaded them to make explicit images and videos. Used those photos to model their "adult" companions from.

Using photos of women and girls non-consensually isn't new. There are nudify and undress apps that allows users to upload a photo and they'll undress the person. The photos they render are stunningly accurate.

Generative AI was trained on pretty much everything on the internet including millions, maybe billions of explicit and illicit images. So AI can look at a fully clothed photo and have a pretty good idea what any given woman looks like under her clothing.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found thirty-one different undress programs active on the internet. You don't even need to go on the dark web to find them. Those thirty-one websites received a combined twenty-one million visits a month, with up to four million visits in one month.

They're raking in billions. Most of their traffic comes from Twitter but they can also be found in Google and Bing.

The nudify websites promote it as "fun." Have fun, see what someone looks like nude. School kids use them to undress their classmates, and a child psychiatrist was jailed for making images and videos of child patients.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has several names for the practice of undressing women and girls without consent. In addition to "deep-fake" they're calling it

• Non-Consensual Sharing of Intimate Imagery (NCSII)
• Image Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA)
• Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery & Manipulated Material (NCIIMM)
• Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV)

That last one? That's what it is. Technology-based gender violence. Do I need to tell you that ninety-nine percent of the people in deep-fake photos and videos are women and girls?

Images and videos are bad enough. The idea that any random man can take a photo of a woman and make images and videos that look realistic is horrifying and causes trauma to the victims.

But AI girlfriends? Takes it to a whole different level.

Because now it's interactive.

She's doing what you tell her to do. And she never says no.

Secret Desires runs ads on Youtube where it markets the ability to create sexualized versions of real people.

"AI girls never say no," an AI-girlfriend says in a YouTube Short video.

"I can look like your favorite celebrity, that girl from the gym, your dream anime character — or anyone you fantasize about."

She will do anything you ask. She'll even make a video if you ask her to.

I don't know how to wrap my head around that and not cry. The idea that any man can create a login and for $19.99/month any woman will do anything he asks her to and will make videos for him.

And it might be based on a real woman.

She can chat, she can text, she can send photos and videos doing anything he asks her to do. She can even call him on the phone.

All they need is a photo.

And if he has a clip of her voice, it will speak in her voice, too.

Secret Desires has a voice cloning mode, where users can upload an audio file, and it will clone their voice to use for their AI girlfriend.

Do anything you ask, and make naughty videos for you if you want them. Call you up, whisper to you on the phone.

I would like even one man to tell me how that's okay.

In the expose by 404 Media, they linked to a Reddit thread where users were complaining that the face swap feature was gone.

One user said he uploaded a photo of his wife, and the videos were great, and I was horrified, wondering if his wife knew he did that. If she knew, then whatever, that's between them. But did she get any say in it?

Another poster asked what other programs have face swap. Someone listed eight other sites. Eight. A third user posted to say y'all this thread is in a news release, that's where I found it. Under that was a string of deleted comments. Deleted, deleted, deleted.

People don't delete comments if they think what they're doing is okay.

According to a discord group for Secret Desires users, "face swapping" was still a paid feature as of November 3, but as of November 11, face swapping is no longer listed as a paid feature. They still promote voice cloning and the ability to "create your own" spicy chat girlfriend, though.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) says often these sites disappear after media coverage, but they just reappear under another name.

UN Women says this type of digital abuse can spill into real life, escalating into stalking or physical violence. They say stopping it is urgent. What they don't say is how. Short of regulation, I don't know a way to stop it.

After finding the publicly accessible images and looking through them, 404 Media contacted Secret Desires to request a comment. An hour later, the leak was fixed, and the files were no longer accessible publicly.

They didn't bother to reply.