Demand for artificially generated smut is surging. But the quality of the visual content being created and shared—like on companion apps, where adult performers are selling their likeness to give fans a 24/7 experience, WIRED reported in March—isn’t exactly movie-level caliber.
Rogue Studio, a cinematic AI-generator platform built around adult visual storytelling, is trying to change that. Launching today, the studio, which bills itself as a “playground for creative ethical mischief,” plans to deliver industry-level video production without creative and sexual restrictions. Its marquee product is Rogue 1.0, an AI video-generation tool for making uncensored adult content that is comparable to other pro-level models Hollywood is using.
“There really isn’t a place for a sophisticated creator to go make content that’s rated R. Either they go to these skeezy NSFW sites that are built on outdated open-source tech, or they try to do high-quality stuff but they’re censored up the gills,” a Rogue Studio cofounder, who goes by Mr. Rogue, tells WIRED. “It’s a very fine line between being a sophisticated platform for adults versus becoming just a porn site. And we do not want the latter. We want to do what HBO did for television.”
Rogue, which has subscription tiers ranging from $29 to $299, offers all the safe-for-work frontier models within its system—similar to Higgsfield, it includes NanoBanana, Seedance, Kling 2.0, and others—in addition to its own proprietary models for generating adult-oriented images and video. Using the platform, you can employ multiple elements from several different AI-generator models when drumming up ideas.
Let’s say you have a concept for a freaky sci-fi horror short. You could potentially start ideating on a zombie character using Midjourney, then use Rogue’s AI tools to add more high-definition uncensored features to the character.
According to its terms of service, Rogue prohibits user-generated images or videos for training, and it strictly forbids the creation or distribution of nonconsensual deepfakes, child sexual abuse material, unauthorized depictions of public figures, and other illegal or abusive imagery.
In an effort to prevent bad actors from using the platform to make these prohibited visuals, Rogue has three layers of human moderation. The first is at the prompt level, which searches for keywords and flags them for possible account suspension if it is determined that there is clear illegal intent. The next layer is inside the system, called the intention layer. Bad actors might try to outsmart moderators by slightly misspelling a real actor’s name to generate a deepfake image, so moderators will reread the prompt to assess the user’s intent. The final layer analyzes the image or video created before it is shared with the user. For example, if a user prompts “famous blonde singer” and the image generated looks like Taylor Swift, the image won’t get delivered.
Mr. Rogue tells WIRED that he and his fellow cofounder, both of whom are movie producers, have decided not to disclose their names because of the “real risk” involved in being associated with creating erotic-themed work. “Because of the climate right now in Hollywood and working in AI, you have got to be very careful,” Mr. Rogue says. (WIRED verified that the pair of founders do, in fact, work in Hollywood; they have produced movies with a combined box office of over $2 billion.)
In the wake of the 2023 Hollywood strikes, where labor unions fought to secure guardrails against the unapproved digital likenesses of actors appearing in films and TV, leading studios have been assessing ways to incorporate AI into productions with the goal of lowering expenses.
The friction has led to AI being seen as unfavorable and has created a stigma around it. Rogue’s cofounders know this but don’t want to shy away from the tech’s creative potential.