Siri Dahl on AI, dating, and how adult media empowers women and men

Everyone by now has seen countless stories about how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing software development, causing headaches for educators, and threatening jobs in industries from law to accounting. But there’s another business being changed very dramatically by AI that doesn’t get nearly so much coverage — and that’s the adult media industry. Some creators are using AI to generate content or impersonate themselves in fan messages. There’s a dark side as well: Some people are using image generators to fabricate fake performers or steal the identities of real ones. And AI has even been used to create non-consensual erotic imagery of ordinary women from photos they posted online — without their knowledge or consent. All of this is unfolding against a much bigger disruption that’s only now coming into full view. For the first time in human history, hundreds of millions of women have the economic and social independence to live life fully on their own terms. That’s a revolutionary change — but old habits die hard, even bad ones, and lots of men, and even women, haven’t realized their newfound opportunities. There’s a lot to think about here, and I couldn’t think of a better person to do it with today than Siri Dahl. She’s a 14-year veteran adult model and one of the industry’s most thoughtful and outspoken voices on culture, gender, and politics. Siri’s also had a unique encounter with AI after being doxxed by the Grok chatbot, an experience that many others are likely to have in the future. TIMECODES 00:00 Introduction 12:27 Is it ethical for adult media creators to use AI to generate content of themselves? 24:40 What AI-generated porn can't offer 32:29 Why middle-aged and older women continue to oppose porn 41:38 The hetero dating recession is both sides rediscovering partnership when women are now finally independent 51:36 'Love Is Blind' as a microcosm of heterosexual dating attitudes 58:14 Why are some people simulating relationship partners with chatbots? GUEST LINKS https://siridahl.com   / siridahl   https://www.404media.co/grok-doxing-r... MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS This is a free episode of Theory of Change, but in order to keep the show sustainable, the full audio, video, and transcript for some episodes are available to subscribers only. The deep conversations we bring you about politics, religion, technology, and media take great time and care to produce. Your subscriptions make Theory of Change possible and we’re very grateful for your help. Please join today to get full access! Substack: https://theoryofchange.show/ Patreon:   / discoverflux   If you would like to support the show but don’t want to subscribe, you can also send one-time donations via PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/theor... If you're not able to support financially, please help us by subscribing and/or leaving a nice review on Apple Podcasts. Doing this helps other people find Theory of Change and our great guests. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... ABOUT THE SHOW Theory of Change is hosted by Matthew Sheffield about larger trends and intersections of politics, religion, media, and technology. It's part of the Flux Community, a new content network of podcasters and writers. Please visit us at flux.community to learn more and to tell us about what you're doing. We're constantly growing and learning from the great people we meet. Get access to all the Flux podcasts visit: https://linktr.ee/discoverflux Theory of Change on Twitter:   / theorychange   Theory of Change on YouTube:    / @theoryofchangepodcast   Matthew Sheffield on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield Matthew Sheffield on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/matthew.flux... Matthew Sheffield on Twitter:   / mattsheffield