I’ve got my eye on you

A chilling video surfaced on X (formerly Twitter) depicting a man utilizing AI to digitally strip a Muslim woman wearing a hijab on an Indian train. After capturing pictures of her, he employed a mere command to render her image scantily clad and disrobe her of dignity. The individual who captured the footage lodged a complaint with the Railway Police, who subsequently reprimanded him.

Witnessing the video left me with a profound sense of fear, as I understood that I could fall prey to such a grave crime. Poet-author Meena Kandasamy, whose work Fieldwork as a Sex Object explores this matter, addressed an event hosted by The Hindu on August 21. She posited that women's agency has been eroded, particularly due to the pervasive misogyny inherent in large tech corporations.

Kandasamy herself has endured a decade of vehement online harassment, including rape threats for her outspoken views. An article within The Hindu elucidating the misuse of deepfakes asserts that AI-generated pornographic clips inflict anguish, trauma, and judgment upon their victims, even from those dearest to them. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that proving a video's falsity does not invariably alleviate the harm.

Once something is disseminated online, it rapidly spreads and the Internet seldom forgets, according to Nehal Saxena in an article. A January 2023 report in The New York Times disclosed that over a span of nine days, Elon Musk's Grok chatbot generated and disseminated 4.4 million images, approximately 41% of which were sexually explicit images of women.

During this period, an alarming 1.8 million nude images of women were produced on the platform. Seema Anand, a London-based author and creator who frequently discusses sex education in her videos, filed a police complaint regarding numerous AI-generated sexual images of her. The 63-year-old expressed that the incident left her feeling "physically nauseous".

To combat non-consensual intimate imagery, which is considered a privacy violation in 61 countries, regulators have vowed to take action. In India, under the Digital Data Protection Act of 2023, the dissemination of non-consensual sexual content is prohibited, though its generation remains unrestricted. Nehal Saxena advocates for the development of technology by major tech firms to counter deepfakes, as well as for enhanced digital literacy for young students in schools and colleges.

However, it is imperative to recognize that women can be subjected to such extreme violations even without a digital presence. U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been promoting the concept of oocyte cryopreservation on the internet, which involves preserving a woman's eggs through a process called vitrification for potential future use.

Cortez aims to freeze her eggs, considering her rigorous political career. She also highlights the double standards in politics, where women face intrusive inquiries about age and family planning, while men in comparable public roles are not subjected to such scrutiny. A two-day photography fellowship for women named Kanavu by the Chennai Photo Biennale seeks to empower them with the skills to become visual storytellers.

The workshop, held on August 29 and 30 in Madurai, aims to boost women's confidence in wielding the camera. It commenced in 2022 and has already benefited numerous women, including Chandini Ramesh, a baby photographer from Theni who operates The Little Bud Photography venture. The exhibition, curated by The Hindu's library team, showcases archival photographs titled Madras On Stage and emphasizes the need to highlight women's achievements, as women constitute half of her team. The photo exhibit is set to remain on display until September 10.