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He also had large quantities of non-AI generated abuse material, and the AI version was deep fakes, ie using real source material and superimposing faces on it.

He also had large quantities of non-AI generated abuse material, and the AI version was deep fakes, ie using real source material and superimposing faces on it. The point being, this isn't a novel case of someone charged for making something synthetic, the AI angle is a small component.

flangola7 3y ago
Were the deepfakes kids' faces on adults or adult faces on kids?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bsagdiyev 3y ago
  The very first sentence of the article answers that question I would hope.
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  The article seems to indicate that he was putting (real) childrens’ faces on sexual imagery that didn’t involve them. From context it would seem to indicate that the underlying imagery wasn’t actual CSAM, otherwise it wouldn’t have been called “synthetic” I think. But the article is never very specific on this point. It’s not clear what would have happened if the faces were the output of a generative AI model, and didn’t actually involve real children. That seems like it's coming soon. Presumably the law is going to treat all of that the same as actual CSAM, but people will need to think hard about the reasoning for it. All of the quotes in this article stress the possibility of harm and risk to (real) minors whose faces were duplicated. Which seems like a very reasonable set of concerns!
  - flangola7 3y ago
    OK thank you. >Presumably the law is going to treat all of that the same as actual CSAM, but people will need to think hard about the reasoning for it. The US already signed a law in 2021 defining CSAM to include photorealistic AI generated material, even if there is no original child involved (such as deepfakes).
    - matthewdgreen 3y ago
      Yes we have that law. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. What I do know is that a lot of the discourse around this area (and specifically new laws on content scanning for CSAM) hinges around the idea that (1) production of CSAM harms children, which is something that is obviously true. But also (2) that proliferation of old or fully-synthetic CSAM causes “addiction” that might lead to further real-world harm to children. The second point is concerning to me because it seems to be more an article of faith than something based in actual science. It feels to me that there is a (very natural!) tendency to want all of this stuff to disappear, because it’s disgusting. But that this results in a certain degree of motivated reasoning where people feel that they must justify new (invasive) legislation by tightly binding it to the welfare of real children. I worry that these justifications might ultimately do a lot of damage, causing us to aggressively treat symptoms rather than doing much to heal the underlying disease.
- version_five 3y ago
  > While Larouche's lawyers argued for a lighter sentence, because children were not assaulted when he produced the videos, the judge wrote that the children whose bodies appeared in the videos had their sexual integrity violated again. > Many images of child pornography have a digital fingerprint, allowing police to identify them, the judge wrote. By creating the synthetic images, Larouche made it more difficult for police to stop the spread of the illicit material. I'm not sure where others got the idea that the underlying video wasn't child abuse material
deleted 3y ago
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gwern 3y ago
Yes, it seems Canada takes a blanket ban approach: > Canadian law bans any visual representation of someone depicted as being under the age of 18 engaged in explicit sexual activity. So you could draw an imaginary person in crayon on construction paper as a child and it'd be illegal. (I was going to write 'of yourself' but it turns out that would actually be permitted: '"What about sexting?" In Canada the law creates a “private use” exception to child pornography. This means that a person can possess sexually explicit depictions of him or herself that may otherwise qualify as child pornography. A person is also permitted to distribute the depictions to any person who is in the depictions as long as the depictions were made with the consent of everyone shown in them and the activity depicted is legal and does not show exploitation.' https://lakinafolabilaw.com/possession-of-child-pornography-charges-section-163-criminal-code/ https://lakinafolabilaw.com/possession-of-child-pornography-... This immediately starts making me think about deepfake and loopholes - could you license deepfake-CP permission from an adult to make it for your own personal use, because that would then have be 'made with the consent of everyone shown in them'? Or, since you can distribute it yourself, does that mean you can sell deepfake-CP of yourself to anyone as long as you use deepfakes to put them into the generated image as well? What a strange twist in the porn industry that would be! I doubt people writing these sexting exceptions gave this any thought...)
olliej 3y ago
Yeah it’s clearly headline BS - “pedo also watched fictional child abuse” is less attention grabbing :-/

flangola7 3y ago

Were the deepfakes kids' faces on adults or adult faces on kids?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bsagdiyev 3y ago
The very first sentence of the article answers that question I would hope.
matthewdgreen 3y ago
The article seems to indicate that he was putting (real) childrens’ faces on sexual imagery that didn’t involve them. From context it would seem to indicate that the underlying imagery wasn’t actual CSAM, otherwise it wouldn’t have been called “synthetic” I think. But the article is never very specific on this point. It’s not clear what would have happened if the faces were the output of a generative AI model, and didn’t actually involve real children. That seems like it's coming soon. Presumably the law is going to treat all of that the same as actual CSAM, but people will need to think hard about the reasoning for it. All of the quotes in this article stress the possibility of harm and risk to (real) minors whose faces were duplicated. Which seems like a very reasonable set of concerns!
- flangola7 3y ago
  OK thank you. >Presumably the law is going to treat all of that the same as actual CSAM, but people will need to think hard about the reasoning for it. The US already signed a law in 2021 defining CSAM to include photorealistic AI generated material, even if there is no original child involved (such as deepfakes).
  - matthewdgreen 3y ago
    Yes we have that law. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. What I do know is that a lot of the discourse around this area (and specifically new laws on content scanning for CSAM) hinges around the idea that (1) production of CSAM harms children, which is something that is obviously true. But also (2) that proliferation of old or fully-synthetic CSAM causes “addiction” that might lead to further real-world harm to children. The second point is concerning to me because it seems to be more an article of faith than something based in actual science. It feels to me that there is a (very natural!) tendency to want all of this stuff to disappear, because it’s disgusting. But that this results in a certain degree of motivated reasoning where people feel that they must justify new (invasive) legislation by tightly binding it to the welfare of real children. I worry that these justifications might ultimately do a lot of damage, causing us to aggressively treat symptoms rather than doing much to heal the underlying disease.
version_five 3y ago
> While Larouche's lawyers argued for a lighter sentence, because children were not assaulted when he produced the videos, the judge wrote that the children whose bodies appeared in the videos had their sexual integrity violated again. > Many images of child pornography have a digital fingerprint, allowing police to identify them, the judge wrote. By creating the synthetic images, Larouche made it more difficult for police to stop the spread of the illicit material. I'm not sure where others got the idea that the underlying video wasn't child abuse material

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

gwern 3y ago

Yes, it seems Canada takes a blanket ban approach: > Canadian law bans any visual representation of someone depicted as being under the age of 18 engaged in explicit sexual activity. So you could draw an imaginary person in crayon on construction paper as a child and it'd be illegal. (I was going to write 'of yourself' but it turns out that would actually be permitted: '"What about sexting?" In Canada the law creates a “private use” exception to child pornography. This means that a person can possess sexually explicit depictions of him or herself that may otherwise qualify as child pornography. A person is also permitted to distribute the depictions to any person who is in the depictions as long as the depictions were made with the consent of everyone shown in them and the activity depicted is legal and does not show exploitation.' https://lakinafolabilaw.com/possession-of-child-pornography-charges-section-163-criminal-code/ https://lakinafolabilaw.com/possession-of-child-pornography-... This immediately starts making me think about deepfake and loopholes - could you license deepfake-CP permission from an adult to make it for your own personal use, because that would then have be 'made with the consent of everyone shown in them'? Or, since you can distribute it yourself, does that mean you can sell deepfake-CP of yourself to anyone as long as you use deepfakes to put them into the generated image as well? What a strange twist in the porn industry that would be! I doubt people writing these sexting exceptions gave this any thought...)

olliej 3y ago

Yeah it’s clearly headline BS - “pedo also watched fictional child abuse” is less attention grabbing :-/