There’s an old, justified adage about how the porn industry leads the path to widespread technology adaptation. From VHS through to DVDs, online payments and even potentially widespread use of the internet itself, porn has spurred growth in many sectors.

Now, one of its biggest porn sites is using artificial intelligence, which could mean that either AI is about to become very mainstream, or it has jumped the shark.

Pornhub is leading the porn-driven AI revolution, utilizing machine learning to identify porn stars and automatically tag content. The platform involves the AI system being fed several thousand videos, in addition to official photos of porn stars, to learn from using computer vision. Once enough visual data is recorded by the platform, it is then able to scan videos and match porn stars with what the company describes as “with a confidence level.”

The results aren’t fully automated, with Pornhub “users” then validating whether the AI-generated tags are accurate by upvoting or downvoting them.

“Artificial intelligence has quickly reached a fever pitch, with many companies incorporating its capabilities to considerably expedite antiquated processes,” Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said in a statement. “And that’s exactly what we’re doing with the introduction of our AI model, which quickly scans videos using computer vision to instantaneously identify pornstars. Now, users can search for a specific pornstar they have an affinity for and we will be able to retrieve more precise results.”

Along with being able to identify porn stars, the AI platform will also provide Pornhub the ability to distinguish among different categories. For obvious reasons, we won’t be providing any examples here.

It’s easy to not take Pornhub’s use of AI seriously, but its use is a positive sign that the technology is going mainstream. Given how picture identification technology has stagnated over the last five or so years, at least according to some, if Pornhub can get the technology right, it could deliver to market a platform that might ultimately compete with Tineye Inc., the only decent player in the space.

Photo: 142549771@N05/Flickr