There's certainly a grey area between what is disrespectful/harmful and what is not when it comes to using an image of an actual person for porn material without an explicit permission. This has little to do with AI itself, of course, but I'll share my thoughts on this matter since I was partly responsible to have started this discussion here.
I think most people would agree that it shouldn't be permitted to take photos of your neighbours, edit them to remove their clothes, and then share the result on a public forum like CF, for example. So, let's focus on the cases involving celebrities.
As a firm believer in freedom of speech, I believe there's room for satires that involve a fictional depiction of celebrities in a lewd context. Watch this brilliant satire of a well-known media figure and Donald Trump, for example:
Should they ban such satires? I suspect that not many of you would think they should.
But why? What if someone made a fake porn video of Estonian PM Kaja Kallas and published it online, for example? Is it any different from the case with Piers Morgan & D. Trump mentioned earlier?
From this point on, the question becomes trickier to answer. So, I'll just share my take on this matter without delving into other possible answers.
I think the two cases should be treated differently because the intention of the former was to criticise a popular journalist's behaviour using a metaphor, while the purpose of the latter video was to consume the image of a politician as an object of sexual gratification. The difference is meaningful because a journalist should expect their way of performing an interview to be open to public criticism, but there's no reason why a politician must expect images of their naked bodies (fictional or not) to be consumed as an object of fetish by the public.
But what if the subject is an actor or an actress? Personally, I draw the line where they were porn stars who are no longer working in the industry. If someone is a porn star, it means they either enjoy sharing or at least have given implicit permission for others to consume the image of their naked body. If they no longer work in the field, creating and publishing images of them would be considered a "homage" of a kind without the danger of interfering with their business.
Personally, I found the Celebrity Series mentioned above to be at least ethically questionable.
If I understood it correctly, they were modelled after ordinary (as in "non-pornographic") actresses active in the 1920s and 30s. The author of those models probably didn't ask permission or obtain a copyright to use their images but decided to create nude characters based on their resemblance for commercial purposes.
I'm pretty sure they wouldn't dare make a similar series on Margot Robbie or Emma Stone. So, I can only assume that the main motive for choosing old actresses might be to avoid lawsuits.
I don't know much about Louise Brooks or Clara Bow, but they wouldn't likely have permitted people to depict them in a pornographic context after they died, or their living family members would have approved of it.
As such, I think such content should be banned. If they are not illegal, it's certainly disrespectful to depict someone in a pornographic context without their knowledge and share it with others.
I believe a community like CF can only exist on the assumption that it is possible to enjoy sexual or violent fantasies in a safe and respectable manner. But if we must do so at the expense of others, we wouldn't be able to argue that our little community isn't a threat to society any longer, as those with a rigid sense of morality often attack people like us.
Maybe I'm overthinking it, but this is what I believe of the subject.
