Speaking in the abstract: There are arguments that fictional / drawn CSAM (such as lolicon) lowers the rates of child sex abuse by giving pedophiles an outlet.

Speaking in the abstract: There are arguments that fictional / drawn CSAM (such as lolicon) lowers the rates of child sex abuse by giving pedophiles an outlet. There are also arguments that consuming fictional / drawn CSAM is the start of an escalating pattern that leads to real sex abuse, as well as contributing to a culture that is more permissive of pedophilia. Anecdotally speaking, especially as someone who was groomed online as a child, I am more inclined toward the latter argument. I believe fictional CSAM harms people and generated CSAM will too. With generated images being more realistic, and with AI 'girlfriends' advertised as a woman who "can't say no" or as "her body, your choice", I am inclined to believe that the harms from this will be novel and possibly greater than existing drawn CSAM. Speaking concretely: Grok is being used to generate revenge porn by editing real images of real children. These children are direct, unambiguous victims. There is no grey area where this can be interpreted as a victimless crime. Further, these models are universally trained with real CSAM in the training data.