Melissa Todd, a sex worker with three decades of experience, has encountered a disturbing new trend that even she finds unsettling: the rise of AI-generated explicit content using real people's likenesses without their permission.
The First AI Request: A Chilling Preview
In January 2026, Todd recounted her first direct experience with the technology. A client asked for her consent to create an AI video. Using a picture from her Instagram, he generated footage of her fully clothed, only to be drenched in green gunge. While he asked first, and she agreed, the result gave her pause. Seeing her face animated in a scenario she never physically participated in highlighted a new vulnerability.
"I wasn't offended," Todd stated, noting that after thirty years, naked pictures of her are easily found online. Yet, people still use AI tools to 'undress' her. She describes the motivation as less about desire and more about the novelty and thrill of creation. This incident underscored how effortlessly a person's likeness can now be lifted, altered, and repurposed.
Consent and Control: The Core Issues
The central problem, Todd emphasises, is consent. She reveals that since that first video, she receives about four requests a month from clients asking to use her face in AI-generated scenarios. These are often framed casually, as if no different from ordering custom content.
However, the landscape is far from consensual for everyone. Friends and colleagues have discovered AI-generated images of themselves on forums they've never visited. Others have been alerted by followers that their face was used in explicit content they didn't create. Even when the fakes are unconvincing, the violation of consent and loss of control is deeply unsettling.
The Financial Impact: Eroding Value and Income
This AI craze is already having a tangible financial effect. Todd shares a specific example: a client with a fetish for large watches. Previously, he would buy and post physical watches to her. Now, he uses AI to digitally alter her existing photos to make it appear she is wearing one.
"From his point of view, it solved the problem instantly. From mine, it quietly removed a few hundred pounds of income," she explains. This minor example illustrates a broader threat: when AI can simulate the result, the need for the labourer and the payment can vanish, slowly eroding the value of the work.
Some argue AI porn could reduce exploitation by removing human performers. Todd counters that this argument collapses when the AI is trained on or used to depict real people without their agreement. "I'm not being exploited, and nor are any of my pals. We're having a perfectly lovely time being creative, making a tidy living, and had rather hoped to continue," she says.
Beyond Imagery: AI Replacing Physical Services
The threat extends beyond static images and videos. Todd points to apps like 'Corner Time', which uses a webcam to film a user standing in a corner, shouting at them if they move. Another site, 'Write For Me', automates the fetish of writing lines as punishment, allowing users to dominate and punish themselves with thankless tasks.
"They can dominate, bore and punish themselves... without making use of me," Todd notes. There are even spanking machines which, while currently lacking human randomness, threaten to replicate another service she provides. The adult industry has always adapted to technology, but this shift feels different because it so easily separates a performer's face and likeness from their actual involvement.
Melissa Todd was fine with that first AI video because she was asked. Looking at the rapid development and adoption of these tools, her stance has changed. "But now? I'm worried," she concludes, highlighting an urgent ethical and economic dilemma facing the digital age.
