"It will get to the point where we're not really sure if Jennifer Aniston just did a porn film, or whoever the celebrity is, or if this is one of the AI things. So we are dragging people's reputation through the mud and we are humiliating them," Fradd told CNA.
"If they can do that with celebrities they can do that with your sister or with your mom if they wanted to."
Rudolph Bush, director of journalism at the University of Dallas, told CNA in 2018 that deepfake technology could also be used for dangerous political manipulation.
"It's very likely to happen, I think, and the consequences could be serious," Bush told CNA. "Depending on who is targeted by this, depending on how ripe that target is to be manipulated, it could be very damaging."
Bush said deepfakes could sow widespread social and institutional confusion.
"As these things become more sophisticated, particularly if they're used by state actors or groups with a high level of understanding of what it takes to manipulate a society or a group, then we'll see whether we can parse what's real or not real," he said.
For Johannson, who called deepfake pornography demeaning, fighting back is not a simple matter.
"it's a useless pursuit, legally, mostly because the internet is a vast wormhole of darkness that eats itself. There are far more disturbing things on the dark web than this, sadly."
Fradd told CNA that Catholics should respond to any kind of pornography with the wisdom of the Church.
"Wojtyla says the human person is a good to which the only proper and adequate attitude is love, but when we consume pornography we are always engaging in something contrary to love, namely use."
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