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AI-generated child sex imagery has every US Attorney General calling for action

21 points by CharlesW 3y ago

superchroma 3y ago
I find it hypocritical and disappointing that the argument must go to the extreme end where lawmakers are forced to "think of the children" (specifically the dignity of those captured in media) before they will lift a finger to stop AI. For the sake of the rhetorical point, they specifically call out deep-fake imagery here. Does that imply that there is no moral issue with "novel" imagery? Not all the AI porn is deep-faked. We see people right now churning out batches of hundreds of (legal) images of not-quite-photoreal, generic, smooth-faced humans in sexual positions, too. Is that genericized AI pornography OK? What about if it depicted a child? In that scenario the link to the children originally affected is comparable to the link between finished AI art and an artist whose work was used to train the AI. I feel like there is some kind of link to be drawn between these two things, and feel like focusing on one and not the other is inconsistent. I of course think that this content is awful and should rightly be banned, I am just disappointed when you see lawmakers excitedly spring to action here when a hell of a lot of people are being negatively impacted by AI right now.
Jigsy 3y ago
I'm probably the outlier in this regard, but I'd rather pedophiles and child molesters use AI rather than go out and endanger real kids. (Or endanger by proxy.) It's like countries like the Australia, Canada or the UK banning Japanese manga artwork to "protect the children." It's got precisely dick to do with protecting kids, it's just about thought policing.* The reason CSAM/CSEM is illegal is because a child had to be abused/exploited in order to create it, not because it's disgusting or immoral. *"There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -Ayn Rand
- dudul 3y ago
  I actually agree with that. To me it looks like a "crime" without victims. Yeah it is disgusting, but who is suffering or being molested or abused here?
  - Sal0xFF 3y ago
    I agree there's no victims. Just like a drunk driver who drives from point A to point B without killing anyone or causing any damage. There's laws in place to prevent that behavior though. If a cop pulls you over for a broken tail light, you bet he's going to arrest you if you're under the influence -- to prevent bad outcomes. There's an attempt to squash these behaviors through punishment with jail time, reputation, and financial costs. Maybe some rehabilitation with AA. I think the same should be placed on this too. It's a slippery slope as a society if we let this slide.
    - madhatter999 3y ago
      Now if you were drunk while playing Need for Speed, that wouldn’t be a problem because there is no “real” humans being endangered by your actions.
    - Turskarama 3y ago
      > Just like a drunk driver who drives from point A to point B without killing anyone or causing any damage I don't think this is a good analogy. There's strong evidence that drink driving increases the risk of accidents, which is why it's illegal. Child porn is illegal because children are harmed to make it. It's _possible_ that the existence of child porn increases the chance of a pedophile acting on their urges, but if there is I don't know of any studies. An analogous (and more ethical) study might be whether or not people have more sex in places where pornography is easily accessible, but I have my doubts. It's well documented that young people are having less sex in general than previous generations and porn is more accessible than it's ever been, so if anything it appears the correlation might go the other way. EDIT: I think the other far more compelling argument is that allowing any child sex images to exist at all normalizes it, and could make people consider it less harmful. Could it increase the rates in which people who are otherwise not pedophiles abuse children? I don't know the answer but it seems like a question worth asking.
drt5b7j 3y ago
For all of those confused why fake images would ever be a crime, the legal argument is spelled out in the article: > They fear that the availability of even unrealistic AI-generated CSAM will "support the growth of the child exploitation market by normalizing child abuse and stoking the appetites of those who seek to sexualize children." This is something which is plausible. Whether the effect exists or not, and how large it is is not something we're going to learn by arguing about it on the Internet.
Charon77 3y ago
So how is this different from photoshop?
chalcolithic 3y ago
If AI generated images/videos are indistinguishable from real ones how can one make money off the real child porn? Urgent action needed!

21 points by CharlesW 3y ago

I find it hypocritical and disappointing that the argument must go to the extreme end where lawmakers are forced to "think of the children" (specifically the dignity of those captured in media) before they will lift a finger to stop AI. For the sake of the rhetorical point, they specifically call out deep-fake imagery here. Does that imply that there is no moral issue with "novel" imagery? Not all the AI porn is deep-faked. We see people right now churning out batches of hundreds of (legal) images of not-quite-photoreal, generic, smooth-faced humans in sexual positions, too. Is that genericized AI pornography OK? What about if it depicted a child? In that scenario the link to the children originally affected is comparable to the link between finished AI art and an artist whose work was used to train the AI. I feel like there is some kind of link to be drawn between these two things, and feel like focusing on one and not the other is inconsistent. I of course think that this content is awful and should rightly be banned, I am just disappointed when you see lawmakers excitedly spring to action here when a hell of a lot of people are being negatively impacted by AI right now.

Jigsy 3y ago

I'm probably the outlier in this regard, but I'd rather pedophiles and child molesters use AI rather than go out and endanger real kids. (Or endanger by proxy.) It's like countries like the Australia, Canada or the UK banning Japanese manga artwork to "protect the children." It's got precisely dick to do with protecting kids, it's just about thought policing.* The reason CSAM/CSEM is illegal is because a child had to be abused/exploited in order to create it, not because it's disgusting or immoral. *"There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -Ayn Rand

dudul 3y ago
I actually agree with that. To me it looks like a "crime" without victims. Yeah it is disgusting, but who is suffering or being molested or abused here?
- Sal0xFF 3y ago
  I agree there's no victims. Just like a drunk driver who drives from point A to point B without killing anyone or causing any damage. There's laws in place to prevent that behavior though. If a cop pulls you over for a broken tail light, you bet he's going to arrest you if you're under the influence -- to prevent bad outcomes. There's an attempt to squash these behaviors through punishment with jail time, reputation, and financial costs. Maybe some rehabilitation with AA. I think the same should be placed on this too. It's a slippery slope as a society if we let this slide.
  - madhatter999 3y ago
    Now if you were drunk while playing Need for Speed, that wouldn’t be a problem because there is no “real” humans being endangered by your actions.
  - Turskarama 3y ago
    > Just like a drunk driver who drives from point A to point B without killing anyone or causing any damage I don't think this is a good analogy. There's strong evidence that drink driving increases the risk of accidents, which is why it's illegal. Child porn is illegal because children are harmed to make it. It's _possible_ that the existence of child porn increases the chance of a pedophile acting on their urges, but if there is I don't know of any studies. An analogous (and more ethical) study might be whether or not people have more sex in places where pornography is easily accessible, but I have my doubts. It's well documented that young people are having less sex in general than previous generations and porn is more accessible than it's ever been, so if anything it appears the correlation might go the other way. EDIT: I think the other far more compelling argument is that allowing any child sex images to exist at all normalizes it, and could make people consider it less harmful. Could it increase the rates in which people who are otherwise not pedophiles abuse children? I don't know the answer but it seems like a question worth asking.

drt5b7j 3y ago

For all of those confused why fake images would ever be a crime, the legal argument is spelled out in the article: > They fear that the availability of even unrealistic AI-generated CSAM will "support the growth of the child exploitation market by normalizing child abuse and stoking the appetites of those who seek to sexualize children." This is something which is plausible. Whether the effect exists or not, and how large it is is not something we're going to learn by arguing about it on the Internet.

Charon77 3y ago

So how is this different from photoshop?

chalcolithic 3y ago

If AI generated images/videos are indistinguishable from real ones how can one make money off the real child porn? Urgent action needed!