Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 15 submissions in the queue.
posted by hubie on Saturday September 09 2023, @01:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the think-of-the-AI-generated-children dept.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/ai-generated-child-sex-imagery-has-every-us-attorney-general-calling-for-action/

On Wednesday, American attorneys general from all 50 states and four territories sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to establish an expert commission to study how generative AI can be used to exploit children through child sexual abuse material (CSAM). They also call for expanding existing laws against CSAM to explicitly cover AI-generated materials.

"As Attorneys General of our respective States and territories, we have a deep and grave concern for the safety of the children within our respective jurisdictions," the letter reads. "And while Internet crimes against children are already being actively prosecuted, we are concerned that AI is creating a new frontier for abuse that makes such prosecution more difficult."

In particular, open source image synthesis technologies such as Stable Diffusion allow the creation of AI-generated pornography with ease, and a large community has formed around tools and add-ons that enhance this ability. Since these AI models are openly available and often run locally, there are sometimes no guardrails preventing someone from creating sexualized images of children, and that has rung alarm bells among the nation's top prosecutors. (It's worth noting that Midjourney, DALL-E, and Adobe Firefly all have built-in filters that bar the creation of pornographic content.)

"Creating these images is easier than ever," the letter reads, "as anyone can download the AI tools to their computer and create images by simply typing in a short description of what the user wants to see. And because many of these AI tools are 'open source,' the tools can be run in an unrestricted and unpoliced way."

As we have previously covered, it has also become relatively easy to create AI-generated deepfakes of people without their consent using social media photos.


Original Submission

 
This discussion was created by hubie (1068) for logged-in users only, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by istartedi on Saturday September 09 2023, @07:29PM (7 children)

    by istartedi (123) on Saturday September 09 2023, @07:29PM (#1323898) Journal

    The rationale for banning pedo material has always been that real children have been molested to produce the material

    Only half true. The other rationale is that if it were freely available people might develop a taste for it. That might seem inconceivable since many investigators actually get PTSD from doing their jobs; but they weren't frog-boiled. They were thrown in the deep end. Imagine some porn site algorithm gradually feeding teenagers progressively younger and younger content, progressively more violent content, etc. Some will acquire a taste for it, and the next thing you know you've got a increased segment of society not content with simulations; they start going out and doing the real thing.

    I'm not saying it's valid or not; just that it's an argument for banning that stuff even if it's AI generated and ostensibly "victimless". This is one of those areas where we bump up hard against the idea of free speech being absolute. It isn't. We err on the side of free speech, but we don't err 100%.

    See also, the first time you tried a mild hot sauce and got used to it; vs. the segment of our population that dares people to eat whole Ghost Peppers or the dude who stuck a crystal of pure capsaicin on his tongue (I don't think that one ended well). The psychological theory, and that justification for banning even AI generated CP seems valid to me.

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=2, Underrated=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TheReaperD on Monday September 11 2023, @07:00AM (4 children)

    by TheReaperD (5556) on Monday September 11 2023, @07:00AM (#1324035)

    There's been some evidence that having child sex dolls could reduce the risk of a pedophile attacking a real child, but most CSAM groups have attacked it without any real counter evidence. Everyone, even at the policy level is acting almost entirely on emotion rather than taking the time to gather real evidence to find the best ways to actually protect children. Like we still sell the myth of being wary of the 'creepy stranger' when most child molesters are someone close to the child. Either a family member, teacher, coach, etc. We're so upside down on this issue because of people screaming at the top of their lungs like chickens with their head's cut off rather than anything resembling a national policy.

    --
    Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
    • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Monday September 11 2023, @05:49PM (3 children)

      by istartedi (123) on Monday September 11 2023, @05:49PM (#1324096) Journal

      If you can site a study, that's interesting. Yes, there are a lot of shrill voices and emotion; but at least a study involving those dolls can be limited. Allowing mass release of AI generated CP, OTOH, can't be done as a limited study so to me the pushback on that seems reasonable. I suppose there could be a study done with a limited number of registered volunteers running over a decade or two; but it's still dicey. I'm assuming the study to which you refer was done with people already predisposed to pedophilia too, so it's a totally different aspect.

      I think what you might be ignoring about the "creepy stranger" focus is that it could actually be working--the children avoid the creeps, and the creeps know that. So the creeps changed their strategy and ran long cons to gain trust instead. Take away stranger danger fear, and suddenly kids are taking candy from white vans again.

      When I was really young, we had the "Boogy man", pronounced the same way as the dance. Then as an adult I heard people writing it like a bogie in golf; but anyway, it was a huge part of our childhood in a fun yet dark way. It was like Halloween, "the boogie man will get ya if you don't watch out". Scary fun. I wonder how much that's still in the culture. We had woods near the house, so of course that's where the boogie man lived. When I got old enough to go out on my own, it was part of growing up to think, "if anybody tries to attack me, I'll fend them off with a sharp stick and/or rocks". It never happened, fortunately. What did really happen is a literal white van drove up to me when I was in jr. high and they said, "do you want to make a deal?". To me that implies drugs more, but I was like "hell no" and pedaled my bike PDQ out of there.

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
      • (Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Tuesday September 12 2023, @04:56AM (2 children)

        by TheReaperD (5556) on Tuesday September 12 2023, @04:56AM (#1324151)

        The problem is, it was preliminary and not enough to be conclusive. A dozen dolls and a pedophiles is not a national double-blind study and as far as I know no one has allowed any real study to get off the ground because too many people have already decided which aside they're on, evidence be damned. And that doesn't even take into account the politicians that want to score political points with their bases over actually protecting children. Personally, I'd rather know what actually keeps children safe. For example, instead of teaching 'watch out for the creepy stranger', we should be teaching adults what behaviors children exhibit when they're being abused. It's usually pretty dramatic and noticeable, at first, before they learn to hide it. Now, it's leaves the other side. What minimizes the chances of someone sexually attracted to children actually attacking them? And, I don't know about you, I'd prefer evidence over rhetoric.

        --
        Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
        • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday September 12 2023, @03:57PM (1 child)

          by istartedi (123) on Tuesday September 12 2023, @03:57PM (#1324234) Journal

          False dichotomy? You can teach children to avoid suspicious strangers *and* teach children what's appropriate from adults they know *and* teach school staff what signs to look for.

          --
          Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
          • (Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Sunday September 17 2023, @09:01AM

            by TheReaperD (5556) on Sunday September 17 2023, @09:01AM (#1325016)

            That would be great, if it were possible. Sadly, at the national policy level, if you expect people to learn a multi-prong nuanced policy, everyone will ignore you and do what some idiot on YouTube or Ticktock says instead. Even when you keep policies simple and focused to a couple of main points, you may still lose out to these people! But, to have any chance of getting people to listen to you, you have to keep it stupid simple and the main points can be remembered in a sentence or two. So, you have to pick your battles and choose the topics that will do the most good for the masses, even though you want to do more. It sucks, but that's reality. So, when I'm talking about points like this, it's not that I wouldn't be for dealing with it all, I'm just realistic to know that we could never make it work as a national policy, as vexing as that is.

            --
            Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 13 2023, @07:25PM

    by NotSanguine (285) <{NotSanguine} {at} {SoylentNews.Org}> on Wednesday September 13 2023, @07:25PM (#1324479) Homepage Journal

    Came over here from the "deadly Dorito" article based on your link.

    The argument you're making was made WRT Lolita [wikipedia.org] too. As well as many of Judy Blume's [wikipedia.org] books.

    Shall we ban those too?

    I'd also note that much of the the medical/psychiatric community considers pedophilia to be a sexual orientation [nih.gov] just like heterosexuality or homosexuality. As such, you won't "create" new pedophiles with fictional accounts, art, etc. whether it's AI generated or not.

    That said, understanding this doesn't make acting on such desires appropriate, as prepubescent people don't have the emotional development/capacity to meaningfully consent to such activities.

    I agree that it's important to take action (laws and enforcement of same as well as treatment to address those with such an orientation) to prevent the abuse and exploitation of children, but fiction is fiction in whatever media -- and no child is harmed by fictional accounts.

    Video games, music and other media have also seen demands for it to be banned because "think of the children." Which is a bunch of bullshit.

    N.B.: I have no sexual interest in the prepubescent and am horrified by abuse/exploitation, sexual or otherwise, of kids.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday September 14 2023, @08:20AM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Thursday September 14 2023, @08:20AM (#1324583) Homepage

    That argument could be used for violent video games. Actually, it has been used, quite broadly and publicly, and based on all current data, incorrectly.

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!