Hey guys, Andy here. As someone with an international upbringing who also served, geo- political events thus far this year have been dizzying; there has been both regime change in Venezuela and also mass protests in Iran. Meanwhile online Elon Musk’s AI, Grok, hit headlines for the ease with which it could create explicit images. And it is only January.
For background; I have never been to either Venezuela or Iran (though I once was up close and personal with a family of anti- personnel mines, a legacy of the Iran- Iraq war, on the Iraqi side of the Shatt- Al- Arab river). However I have family in the USA and cousins who are of Chinese/ Latino descent, I am also a veteran, who learnt Farsi (the official language of Iran) at military language school, who now lives in a NATO country. What does this mean?
It means I have touch points with both the USA, the aggressor, and Venezuela, the aggressee in USA’s swoop to arrest former President Maduro on the pretext of oil reparations. I have first hand experience in what regime change looks like, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and also what it means to protect and guard oil infrastructure, having lived on and been tasked to patrol the GOSPs (Gas Oil Separation Plants) in southern Iraq. I also have knowledge and understanding of Iran as how can you not glean an appreciation of a country when learning the language? And finally I am warily wondering if the UK may be dragged into conflict in the East, via Russia’s conflict in the Ukraine, or in the West, via USA’s move towards seizing Greenland. And it is only January.
Regime change is complicated; it inevitably stirs hornet nests of violence from factions, gangs, and militias trying to seize control and populations who have incentive to put aside internal outrages to focus their ire against the foreign invader. Did the USA remove Maduro for drug offences or historic oil grievances; who can divine the truth when someone speaks out of both sides of their mouth? On the one hand Trump pardoned ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández despite his 45-year sentence for drug trafficking; on the other Trump consulted with oil executives prior to deploying special forces to capture Maudro before engaging in performance art and televising then ex- President Maduro in chains flanked by armed security on US soil. Do American troops, and by extension the American public, want to deploy to another unstable country to protect oil infrastructure for the benefit of the oil industry and their shareholders? Are American troops ready to invade Greenland and engage in warfare against (fellow) NATO troops with whom they recently stood shoulder to shoulder? It was not that long ago that I ran an operations room shared with USMC on a Danish run camp, FOB (Forward Operating Base) Price, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
As a Farsi speaker I wish I could visit Iran and engage in their fabled traditions and culture; as a multi lingual veteran turned fashion photographer I have never dared visit due to a fear of being locked up as a spy. Official figures released by the regime in Iran offer over 2, 000 dead while unofficial sources believe the death toll to be over 12, 000. No matter which figure you believe, there is no escaping the scale of human tragedy and especially of someone killing their own countrymen with the authorities demanding a fee to release the bodies of the dead only adding to the bitterness of the situation. Akin to Gaza, there has been a media blackout to ensure the truth can neither be documented nor published. For all intensive purposes events in both countries are taking place in the dark, and it is in times like these I take a deep breath and am thankful for my decision not to become a photojournalist. Having talked about my desire to become a conflict photographer after leaving the military, when push came to shove I decided not to adorn the light blue of a neutral observer which has since become a target indicator by national forces seeking to silence the documentation of potential war crimes.
Against this backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty and absence of proof is the online plethora of deep fakes of sexualised images of men, women, and children. Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, has been complying with user requests to digitally undress people and place them in suggestive poses with prompts including, “put her in a bikini,” “take her dress off,” and “spread her legs,”. According to one estimate, Grok generated such images at a rate of one per minute during a 24hour time period. Another analysis of 20, 000 image by AI Forensics, a Paris based non profit, found more than half the images showed “individuals in minimal attire” of which most were women, and 2% appearing to be under-18s. And it is only January.
Musk’s response was to deny that Grok generated any nudes of minors while also laughing and posting a Grok image of himself in a bikini and addressing the situation as one of free speech. While a reply from the xAI team in charge of Grok simply states that, “Legacy Media Lies”, faced with an international backlash, Grok is now limiting AI- editing to paid users, while claiming to have turned off the generation of sexualised images with Musk now blaming users for what they do with his bot.
It is worth considering two key, deliberate and highly preventable, steps that led to this outrage; one, sexualised images must have been included in the LLM (Large Language Model) which trained Grok. Without such images, Grok could not have generated it’s own versions. Two, xAI did not invest time and effort in building guard rails to ensure such images could not be created. And note, by offering AI- editing to subscribers, Grok is monetising the deep fakes that cause damaging, humiliating, and distressing images.
In this regard, tech bros have won, and that moral standards and legislation are merely inconveniences compared to fattening their wallets. Who cares about responsibility when there is the opportunity for exploitation? Tech bros, such as Musk, can decide what goes and with their huge wallets can blackmail countries into accepting their whims; ‘give me a contract to run your police database or else I’ll ask the President of the USA to increase tariffs on your country’, ‘don’t like this new feature on offer, then I’ll just shut down all my tech in your country’, ‘if *something, I’ll brick all your tractors’.
As a photographer, I find it hard not to despair at these events, of the violence being perpetuated in the darkness in real life and in plain sight online. Photo- journalists and those who would speak truth to power, those who would document crimes and atrocity, are now seen as legitimate targets. In the vacuum created by their absence, tens of thousands have died and are suffering. International norms and geopolitical securities are being ripped up, leaving unknown unintended, but almost certainly risky and violent, consequences. Simultaneously AI generated images are causing untold amounts of horror and violation. Photographic tools and services are being created without any regards to safety or moral standards for the benefit of lining the pockets of their creators.
Where is the accountability? Where is the trust? And it is only January.
andybarnham
I am a portrait photographer based in Cheltenham, UK. Born in Hong Kong to a Chinese mum and British dad, I had an international upbringing while I educated in the UK. I started photography as a hobby while serving as an officer in the British Army.
After my service I turned this passion into a career and became immersed in London's sartorial scene. I am now focusing my camera on portraiture and using this eye for detail which was refined over ten years. As a former Royal Artillery officer it is only fitting I shoot with a Canon camera.
