Andreessen Horowitz is a key investor in Civitai, an AI image-generating service that reportedly profited from nonconsensual porn generated using its platform. 404Media's Emanual Maiberg reports that job listings exposed the link, and that the company did not respond to inquiries.
…also known as a16z, the influential Silicon Valley venture capital firm that was an early investor in Facebook, Lyft, and other tech giants, has invested in Civitai, a giant platform for sharing AI models that enables and profits from the creation of AI generated nonconsensual sexual images of real people. That includes launching a feature where people can list "bounties" for others to create AI models of specific targets.
The rushed-out investment announcement at a friendlier venue is funny.
Civitai seems typical of everything good and bad about the technology: it makes new artistic tools accessible, useful and sharable through an open-source platform, but the people behind it are always doomed to be washing their hands of the people they cultivate on it—and in the light of the dueling exposé and puff piece here it all seems quite malevolent.
