Reddit Inc. is the latest site to ban artificial intelligence-generated fake porn as the practice continues to gain widespread popularity.

The fake porn, dubbed “deepfakes,” uses AI software to superimpose the face of a celebrity, such as Alexandra Daddario (pictured), over existing porn. Although the generation of fake porn is not a new practice, software using AI to create it delivers the ability for even nontechnologically inclined users to create fake celebrity porn videos that appear real — so real that visually it’s often difficult to ascertain whether the celebrity porn video is fake.

As the BBC explains, “By using machine learning, [the] editing task has been condensed into three user-friendly steps: gather a photoset of a person, choose a pornographic video to manipulate, and then just wait. Your computer will do the rest, though it can take more than 40 hours for a short clip.”

The first examples of deepfakes emerged in December when Motherboard reported that “someone used an algorithm to paste the face of ‘Wonder Woman’ star Gal Gadot onto a porn video, and the implications are terrifying.” The practice has grown rapidly since then.

Reddit, which joined Discord, Gfycat, Pornhub and Twitter is banning deepfakes, closed down r/Deepfakes, a subreddit dedicated to fake celebrity videos, and updated its sitewide rules against involuntary pornography and sexual or suggestive content involving minors.

The term “involuntary pornography” is the most common reason stated by those companies banning the practice. Pornhub said in a statement on its ban that “nonconsensual content directly violates our TOS [terms of service] and consists of content such as revenge porn, deepfakes or anything published without a person’s consent or permission.” The emphasis is ours, but it’s the key to the issue: Even though they are fakes, Deepfakes are still videos portraying people in compromising positions without their permission.

Fake images and videos themselves have not been completely banned. Users can still create fakes for distribution but only if they don’t involve pornographic content.

Obvious uses may not immediately jump out, but some less pornography-obsessed users of the same software used to generate deepfakes have applied it to comedic ends, such a funny videos involving actor Nicholas Cage’s face (above) applied to various nonpornographic clips for TV shows and movies.

Photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons