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How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

I’ve been with my boyfriend for a year and things have been smooth sailing so far, with very little contention between us two. But about a week ago, he left his laptop open on the bed and I decided to take a look at his ChatGPT history. What I saw seriously made my skin crawl.

Apparently, he’d fed images of people in his life to the chat and created nude images of them, including a family friend that he once reassured me he saw like a “sister.” Other people included some of our friends.

I was disgusted and confronted him right away. He didn’t have a good excuse but assured me he’d stop and had just been curious about what it would look like. I frankly find this very disgusting and feel like he violated these people in our lives. Can we come back from this? And can I really trust he won’t do this again? It’s hard to throw away everything we had but I guess I’m seeking validation that it’s okay to walk away over this and it’s as big a deal as I feel like it is.

—Can’t Unsee It

Dear Can’t Unsee It,

It’s understandable that your discovery disgusted you. You encountered something extreme with no warning. It may have been a product of curiosity that is natural or otherwise uncontrollable—the kind of curiosity that I think is forgivable. I’m not a believer in thought crimes and our society is predicated not on the lack of impulses but the ability to control them. Taking things a step further to generate pictures is a bit more intentional than a reflexive or spontaneously generated thought, though. There’s a will there that is concerning.

However, I’m not sure that the generation of such imagery is a violation, per se, in principle. I think if a violation did occur it pertains to the medium. If your boyfriend had sketched or painted pictures of these people, sure it would be disconcerting to encounter, and arguably creepy, but it’s an extension of the fantasy that doesn’t necessarily affect its subject. They might be put off if they were to find out about such images, but if they never did, their lives wouldn’t be affected. The fantasizer would still have the fantasies, and the objects of fantasy would be none the wiser.

The violation, as I see it, is uploading pictures of people to an LLM. Those pictures could be used to train the bot and they’re vulnerable to a data breach, which could put those pictures in the hands of someone who could manipulate them further and use them for deepfakes. It’s an unlikely scenario—for now—but it’s possible. There are ways to somewhat protect the images uploaded to the likes of ChatGPT, but options like turning off chat history in ChatGPT (so that conversations with the bot aren’t used to train the system) are not the default and so require opting in. You don’t know where the photos could possibly end up when you enter them into a LLM. Because the photos could end up in the wrong hands, strict respect would demand such imagery not be uploaded without the permission of those whom it depicts.

My Son Did Something Unneighborly to the New Kid Next Door. He Got What He Deserved.

There is a possibility that your boyfriend got carried away, and maybe since you brought your distaste to his attention, he’ll change his ways. For the record, I don’t think you should have been snooping, but I think it’s actually a good sign that he did not try to make that an issue or use it as a way of exonerating himself. If he deflected by pointing out your breach of trust, it could signal that he wasn’t taking your concerns seriously. You have no guarantees he won’t do this again. You can’t see the future, and trust amounts to pretending that you can. That doesn’t mean it’s invalid or not worth extending to someone, just that it’s a feeling with uncertainty at its root.

Is this a fireable offense, as it were? It wouldn’t be for me, but everyone has to find their own zone of comfort and dealbreaking deviations are inevitable. If you have such a good thing going, giving him another chance is probably the move. But if you are too distracted to continue the relationship or now see him in a way that is fundamentally different than when you started the relationship (slash presumably fell in love with him), walking away is a completely valid choice.

—Rich

More Advice From Slate

For a long time, I had an ongoing casual hookup with a guy who was by far the best sex I’ve ever had. The chemistry was unbelievable, he was super fun and generous in bed, but also a selfish asshole out of it. I got burned him multiple times and complained about it, but it didn’t change, so we parted ways. Now he wants to try dating me—but I fear it’s only because I’ve written him off. I really love having sex with him, but I’m scared he’ll break my heart. What’s a girl to do?

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