• macniel@feddit.de
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    6 months ago

    Mhm I have mixed feelings about this. I know that this entire thing is fucked up but isn’t it better to have generated stuff than having actual stuff that involved actual children?

    • pavnilschanda@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      A problem that I see getting brought up is that generated AI images makes it harder to notice photos of actual victims, making it harder to locate and save them

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          It does learn from real images, but it doesn’t need real images of what it’s generating to produce related content.
          As in, a network trained with no exposure to children is unlikely to be able to easily produce quality depictions of children. Without training on nudity, it’s unlikely to produce good results there as well.
          However, if it knows both concepts it can combine them readily enough, similar to how you know the concept of “bicycle” and that of “Neptune” and can readily enough imagine “Neptune riding an old fashioned bicycle around the sun while flaunting it’s tophat”.

          Under the hood, this type of AI is effectively a very sophisticated “error correction” system. It changes pixels in the image to try to “fix it” to matching the prompt, usually starting from a smear of random colors (static noise).
          That’s how it’s able to combine different concepts from a wide range of images to create things it’s never seen.

        • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Basically if I want to create … (I’ll use a different example for obvious reasons, but I’m sure you could apply it to the topic)

          … “an image of a miniature denium airjet with Taylor Swift’s face on the side of it”, the AI generators can despite no such thing existing in the training data. It may take multiple attempts and effort with the text prompt to get exactly what you’re looking for, but you could eventually get a convincing image.

          AI takes loads of preexisting data on airplanes, T.Swift, and denium to combine it all into something new.

        • pavnilschanda@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          True, but by their very nature their generations tend to create anonymous identities, and the sheer amount of them would make it harder for investigators to detect pictures of real, human victims (which can also include indicators of crime location.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Well that, and the idea of cathartic relief is increasingly being dispelled. Behaviour once thought to act as a pressure relief for harmful impulsive behaviour is more than likely just a pattern of escalation.

          • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            Catharsis theory predicts that venting anger should get rid of it and should therefore reduce subsequent aggression. The present findings, as well as previous findings, directly contradict catharsis theory (e.g., Bushman et al., 1999; Geen & Quanty, 1977). For reduc- ing anger and aggression, the worst possible advice to give people is to tell them to imagine their provocateur’s face on a pillow or punching bag as they wallop it, yet this is precisely what many pop psychologists advise people to do. If followed, such advice will only make people angrier and more aggressive.

            Source

            But there’s a lot more studies who have essentially said the same thing. The cathartic hypothesis is mainly a byproduct of the Freudian era of psychology, where hypothesis mainly just sounded good to someone on too much cocaine.

            Do you have a source of studies showing the opposite?

            • 9bananas@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              your source is exclusively about aggressive behavior…

              it uses the term “arousal”, which is not referring to sexual arousal, but rather a state of heightened agitation.

              provide an actual source in support of your claim, or stop spreading misinformation.

              • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                Lol, my source is about the cathartic hypothesis. So your theory is that it doesn’t work with anger, but does work for sexual deviancy?

                Do you have a source that supports that?

                • 9bananas@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  you made the claim that the cathartic hypothesis is poorly supported by evidence, which you source supports, but is not relevant to the topic at hand.

                  your other claim is that sexual release follows the same patterns as aggression. that’s a pretty big claim! i’d like to see a source that supports that claim.

                  otherwise you’ve just provided a source that provides sound evidence, but is also entirely off-topic…

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Let’s see here, listen to my therapist who has decades of real experience or a study from over 20 years ago?

              Sorry bud, I know who I’m going with on this and it ain’t your academic.

              • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                Let’s see here, listen to my therapist who has decades of real experience or a study from over 20 years ago?

                Your therapist is still utilizing Freudian psychoanalysis?

                Well, if age is a factor in your opinion about the validity of the care you receive, I have some bad news for you…

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  You’re still using 5,000 year old Armenian shoes?

                  Of course not. Stop being reductive.

            • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Yes, but I’m too lazy to sauce everything again. If it’s not in my saved comments someone else will have to.

              E: couldn’t find it on my reddit either. I have too many saved comments lol.

    • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The arrest is only a positive. Allowing pedophiles to create AI CP is not a victimless crime. As others point out it muddies the water for CP of real children, but it also potentially would allow pedophiles easier ways to network in the open (if the images are legal they can easily be platformed and advertised), and networking between abusers absolutely emboldens them and results in more abuse.

      As a society we should never allow the normalization of sexualizing children.

      • nexguy@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Interesting. What do you think about drawn images? Is there a limit to how will the artist can be at drawing/painting? Stick figures vs life like paintings. Interesting line to consider.

        • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          If it was photoreal and difficult to distinguish from real photos? Yes, it’s exactly the same.

          And even if it’s not photo real, communities that form around drawn child porn are toxic and dangerous as well. Sexualizing children is something I am 100% against.

          • littlewonder@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            It feels like driving these people into the dark corners of the internet is worse than allowing them to collect in clearnet spaces where drawn csam is allowed.

        • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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          6 months ago

          I’m in favor of specific legislation criminalizing drawn CSAM. It’s definitely less severe than photographic CSAM, and it’s definitely harmful.

      • NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        networking between abusers absolutely emboldens them and results in more abuse.

        Is this proven or a common sense claim you’re making?

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a mixture of the two. It’s kind of like if you surround yourself with criminals regularly, you’re more likely to become one yourself. Not to say it’s a 100% given, just more probable.

        • moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 months ago

          The far right in France normalized its discourses and they are now at the top of the votes.

          Also in France, people talked about pedophilia at the TV in the 70s, 80s and at the beginning of the 90s. It was not just once in a while. It was frequent and open without any trouble. Writers would casually speak about sexual relationships with minors.

          The normalization will blur the limits between AI and reality for the worse. It will also make it more popular.

          The other point is also that people will always ends with the original. Again, politic is a good example. Conservatives try to mimic the far right to gain votes but at the end people vote for the far right…

          And, someone has a daughter. A pedophile takes a picture of her without asking and ask an AI to produce CP based on her. I don’t want to see things like this.

      • lily33@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Actually, that’s not quite as clear.

        The conventional wisdom used to be, (normal) porn makes people more likely to commit sexual abuse (in general). Then scientists decided to look into that. Slowly, over time, they’ve become more and more convinced that (normal) porn availability in fact reduces sexual assault.

        I don’t see an obvious reason why it should be different in case of CP, now that it can be generated.

        • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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          6 months ago

          It should be different because people can not have it. It is disgusting, makes them feel icky and thats just why it has to be bad. Conventional wisdom sometimes really is just convential idiocracy.

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      Did we memory hole the whole ‘known CSAM in training data’ thing that happened a while back? When you’re vacuuming up the internet you’re going to wind up with the nasty stuff, too. Even if it’s not a pixel by pixel match of the photo it was trained on, there’s a non-zero chance that what it’s generating is based off actual CSAM. Which is really just laundering CSAM.

      • Ragdoll X@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        IIRC it was something like a fraction of a fraction of 1% that was CSAM, with the researchers identifying the images through their hashes but they weren’t actually available in the dataset because they had already been removed from the internet.

        Still, you could make AI CSAM even if you were 100% sure that none of the training images included it since that’s what these models are made for - being able to combine concepts without needing to have seen them before. If you hold the AI’s hand enough with prompt engineering, textual inversion and img2img you can get it to generate pretty much anything. That’s the power and danger of these things.

        • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 months ago

          What % do you think was used to generate the CSAM, though? Like, if 1% of the images were cups it’s probably drawing on some of that to generate images of cups.

          And yes, you could technically do this with no CSAM training material, but we don’t know if that’s what the AI is doing because the image sources used to train it were mass scraped from the internet. They’re using massive amounts of data without filtering it and are unable to say with certainty whether or not there is CSAM in the training material.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Yeah, it’s very similar to the “is loli porn unethical” debate. No victim, it could supposedly help reduce actual CSAM consumption, etc… But it’s icky so many people still think it should be illegal.

      There are two big differences between AI and loli though. The first is that AI would supposedly be trained with CSAM to be able to generate it. An artist can create loli porn without actually using CSAM references. The second difference is that AI is much much easier for the layman to create. It doesn’t take years of practice to be able to create passable porn. Anyone with a decent GPU can spin up a local instance, and be generating within a few hours.

      In my mind, the former difference is much more impactful than the latter. AI becoming easier to access is likely inevitable, so combatting it now is likely only delaying the inevitable. But if that AI is trained on CSAM, it is inherently unethical to use.

      Whether that makes the porn generated by it unethical by extension is still difficult to decide though, because if artists hate AI, then CSAM producers likely do too. Artists are worried AI will put them out of business, but then couldn’t the same be said about CSAM producers? If AI has the potential to run CSAM producers out of business, then it would be a net positive in the long term, even if the images being created in the short term are unethical.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Just a point of clarity, an AI model capable of generating csam doesn’t necessarily have to be trained on csam.

          • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            Why is that? The whole point of generative AI is that it can combine concepts.

            You train it on the concept of a chair using only red chairs. You train it on the color red, and the color blue. With this info and some repetition, you can have it output a blue chair.

            The same applies to any other concepts. Larger, smaller, older, younger. Man, boy, woman, girl, clothed, nude, etc. You can train them each individually, gradually, and generate things that then combine these concepts.

            Obviously this is harder than just using training data of what you want. It’s slower, it takes more effort, and results are inconsistent, but they are results. And then, you curate the most viable of the images created this way to train a new and refined model.

            • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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              6 months ago

              Yeah, there are photorealistic furry photo models, and I have yet to meet an anthropomorphic dragon IRL.

      • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        I think one of the many problems with AI generated CSAM is that as AI becomes more advanced it will become increasingly difficult for authorities to tell the difference between what was AI generated and what isn’t.

        Banning all of it means authorities don’t have to sift through images trying to decipher between the two. If one image is declared to be AI generated and it’s not…well… that doesn’t help the victims or create less victims. It could also make the horrible people who do abuse children far more comfortable putting that stuff out there because it can hide amongst all the AI generated stuff. Meaning authorities will have to go through far more images before finding ones with real victims in it. All of it being illegal prevents those sorts of problems.

        • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          And that’s a good point! Luckily it’s still (usually) fairly easy to identify AI generated images. But as they get more advanced, that will likely become harder and harder to do.

          Maybe some sort of required digital signatures for AI art would help; Something like a public encryption key in the metadata, that can’t be falsified after the fact. Anything without that known and trusted AI signature would by default be treated as the real deal.

          But this would likely require large scale rewrites of existing image formats, if they could even support it at all. It’s the type of thing that would require people way smarter than myself. But even that feels like a bodged solution to a problem that only exists because people suck. And if it required registration with a certificate authority (like an HTTPS certificate does) then it would be a hurdle for local AI instances to jump through. Because they would need to get a trusted certificate before they could sign their images.

      • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        But it’s icky so many people still think it should be illegal.

        Imo, not the best framework for creating laws. Essentially, it’s an appeal to emotion.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I have trouble with this because it’s like 90% grey area. Is it a pic of a real child but inpainted to be nude? Was it a real pic but the face was altered as well? Was it completely generated but from a model trained on CSAM? Is the perceived age of the subject near to adulthood? What if the styling makes it only near realistic (like very high quality CG)?

      I agree with what the FBI did here mainly because there could be real pictures among the fake ones. However, I feel like the first successful prosecution of this kind of stuff will be a purely moral judgement of whether or not the material “feels” wrong, and that’s no way to handle criminal misdeeds.

      • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If not trained on CSAM or in painted but fully generated, I can’t really think of any other real legal arguments against it except for: “this could be real”. Which has real merit, but in my eyes not enough to prosecute as if it were real. Real CSAM has very different victims and abuse so it needs different sentencing.

    • ImminentOrbit@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      It reminds me of the story of the young man who realized he had an attraction to underage children and didn’t want to act on it, yet there were no agencies or organizations to help him, and that it was only after crimes were committed that anyone could get help.

      I see this fake cp as only a positive for those people. That it might make it difficult to find real offenders is a terrible reason against.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I think the point is that child attraction itself is a mental illness and people indulging it even without actual child contact need to be put into serious psychiatric evaluation and treatment.

      • forensic_potato@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        This mentality smells of “just say no” for drugs or “just don’t have sex” for abortions. This is not the ideal world and we have to find actual plans/solutions to deal with the situation. We can’t just cover our ears and hope people will stop

    • Murvel@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      It feeds and evolves a disorder which in turn increases risks of real life abuse.

      But if AI generated content is to be considered illegal, so should all fictional content.

      • SigHunter@lemmy.kde.social
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        6 months ago

        Or, more likely, it feeds and satisfies a disorder which in turn decreases risk of real life abuse.

        Making it illegal so far helped nothing, just like with drugs

        • Murvel@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          That’s not how these addictive disorders works… they’re never satisfied and always need more.

  • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The headline/title needs to be extended to include the rest of the sentence

    “and then sent them to a minor”

    Yes, this sicko needs to be punished. Any attempt to make him the victim of " the big bad government" is manipulative at best.

    Edit: made the quote bigger for better visibility.

    • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      That’s a very important distinction. While the first part is, to put it lightly, bad, I don’t really care what people do on their own. Getting real people involved, and minor at that? Big no-no.

    • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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      6 months ago

      All LLM headlines are like this to fuel the ongoing hysteria about the tech. It’s really annoying.

      • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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        Sure is. I report the ones I come across as clickbait or missleading title, explaining the parts left out…such as this one where those 7 words change the story completely.

        Whoever made that headline should feel ashamed for victimizing a grommer.

    • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I’d be torn on the idea of AI generating CP, if it were only that. On one hand if it helps them calm the urges while no one is getting hurt, all the better. But on the other hand it might cause them not to seek help, but problem is already stigmatized severely enough that they are most likely not seeking help anyway.

      But sending that stuff to a minor. Big problem.

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It won’t. They’ll get them for the actual crime not the thought crime that’s been nerfed to oblivion.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Based on the blacklists that one has to fire up before browsing just about any large anime/erotica site, I am guessing that these “laws” are not enforced, because they are flimsy laws to begin with. Reading the stipulations for what constitutes a crime is just a hotbed for getting an entire case tossed out of court. I doubt any prosecutors would lean hard on possession of art unless it was being used in another crime.

    • Ricky Rigatoni@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      You can get away with a lot of heinous crimes by simply not telling people and sharing the results.

      • quindraco@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        You consider it a heinous crime to draw a picture and keep it to yourself?

    • Frozengyro@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      That’s sickening to know there are bastards out there who will get away with it since they are only creating it.

      • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I’m not sure. Let us assume that you generate it on your own PC at home (not using a public service) and don’t brag about it and never give it to anybody - what harm is done?

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          Society is not ok with the idea of someone cranking to CSAM, then just walking around town. It gives people wolf-in-sheep-clothing vibes.

          So the notion of there being “ok” CSAM-style ai content is a non starter for a huge fraction of people because it still suggests appeasing a predator.

          I’m definitely one of those people that simply can’t accept any version of it.

        • Frozengyro@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Even if the AI didn’t train itself on actual CSAM that is something that feels inherently wrong. Your mind is not right to think that’s acceptable IMO.

          • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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            6 months ago

            Laws shouldn’t be about feelings though and we shouldn’t prosecute people for victimless thought crimes. How often did you think something violent when someone really pissed you off? Should you have been persecuted for that thought too?

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                6 months ago

                Who are the victims of someone generating such images privately then? It’s on the same level as all the various fan fiction shit that was created manually over all the past decades.

                And do we apply this to other depictions of criminalized things too? Would we ban the depiction of violence & sexual violence on TV, in books, and in video games too?

  • peanuts4life@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 months ago

    It’s worth mentioning that in this instance the guy did send porn to a minor. This isn’t exactly a cut and dry, “guy used stable diffusion wrong” case. He was distributing it and grooming a kid.

    The major concern to me, is that there isn’t really any guidance from the FBI on what you can and can’t do, which may lead to some big issues.

    For example, websites like novelai make a business out of providing pornographic, anime-style image generation. The models they use deliberately tuned to provide abstract, “artistic” styles, but they can generate semi realistic images.

    Now, let’s say a criminal group uses novelai to produce CSAM of real people via the inpainting tools. Let’s say the FBI cast a wide net and begins surveillance of novelai’s userbase.

    Is every person who goes on there and types, “Loli” or “Anya from spy x family, realistic, NSFW” (that’s an underaged character) going to get a letter in the mail from the FBI? I feel like it’s within the realm of possibility. What about “teen girls gone wild, NSFW?” Or “young man, no facial body hair, naked, NSFW?”

    This is NOT a good scenario, imo. The systems used to produce harmful images being the same systems used to produce benign or borderline images. It’s a dangerous mix, and throws the whole enterprise into question.

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      The major concern to me, is that there isn’t really any guidance from the FBI on what you can and can’t do, which may lead to some big issues.

      https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2024/PSA240329 https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-child-pornography

      They’ve actually issued warnings and guidance, and the law itself is pretty concise regarding what’s allowed.

      (8) “child pornography” means any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where-

      (A) the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;

      (B) such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or

      © such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

      (11) the term “indistinguishable” used with respect to a depiction, means virtually indistinguishable, in that the depiction is such that an ordinary person viewing the depiction would conclude that the depiction is of an actual minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. This definition does not apply to depictions that are drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings depicting minors or adults.

      https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?hl=false&edition=prelim&req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title18-section2256&f=treesort&num=0

      If you’re going to be doing grey area things you should do more than the five minutes of searching I did to find those honestly.

      It was basically born out of a supreme Court case in the early 2000s regarding an earlier version of the law that went much further and banned anything that “appeared to be” or “was presented as” sexual content involving minors, regardless of context, and could have plausibly been used against young looking adult models, artistically significant paintings, or things like Romeo and Juliet, which are neither explicit nor vulgar but could be presented as involving child sexual activity. (Juliet’s 14 and it’s clearly labeled as a love story).
      After the relevant provisions were struck down, a new law was passed that factored in the justices rationale and commentary about what would be acceptable and gave us our current system of “it has to have some redeeming value, or not involve actual children and plausibly not look like it involves actual children”.

    • PirateJesus@lemmy.today
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      The major concern to me, is that there isn’t really any guidance from the FBI on what you can and can’t do, which may lead to some big issues.

      The Protect Act of 2003 means that any artistic depiction of CSAM is illegal. The guidance is pretty clear, FBI is gonna raid your house…eventually. We still haven’t properly funded the anti-CSAM departments.

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      Is every person who goes on there and types, “Loli” or “Anya from spy x family, realistic, NSFW” (that’s an underaged character) going to get a letter in the mail from the FBI?

      I’ll throw that baby out with the bathwater to be honest.

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        Simulated crimes aren’t crimes. Would you arrest every couple that finds health ways to simulate rape fetishes? Would you arrest every person who watches Fast and The Furious or The Godfather?

        If no one is being hurt, if no real CSAM is being fed into the model, if no pornographic images are being sent to minors, it shouldn’t be a crime. Just because it makes you uncomfortable, don’t make it immoral.

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          Or, ya know, everyone who ever wanted to decapitate those stupid fucking Skyrim children. Crime requires damaged parties, and with this (idealized case, not the specific one in the article) there is none.

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            Those were demon children from hell (with like 2 exceptions maybe). It was a crime by Bethesda to make them invulnerable / protected by default.

        • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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          Simulated crimes aren’t crimes.

          If they were, any one who’s played games is fucked. I’m confident everyone who has played went on a total ramapage murdering the townfolk, pillaging their houses and blowing everything up…in Minecraft.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          They would though. We know they would because conservatives already did the whole laws about how you can have sex in private thing.

        • PirateJesus@lemmy.today
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          Simulated crimes aren’t crimes.

          Artistic CSAM is definitely a crime in the United States. PROTECT act of 2003.

          • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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            People have only gotten in trouble for that when they’re already in trouble for real CSAM. I’m not terrible interested in sticking up for actual CSAM scum.

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              For now, if you read the article, it states that he shared the pictures to form like minded groups where they got emboldened and could support each other and legitimize/normalize their perverted thoughts. How about no thanks.

              • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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                wrong comment chain. people weren’t talking about the criminal shithead the article is about but about the scenario of someone using (not csam trained) models to create questionable content (thus it is implied that there would be no victim). we all know that there are bad actors out there, just like there are rapists and murderers. still we dont condemn true crime lovers or rape fetishists until they commit a crime. we could do the same with pedos but somehow we believe hating them into the shadows will stop them somehow from doing criminal stuff?

                • Meansalladknifehands@lemm.ee
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                  And I’m using the article as an example of that it doesn’t just stop at “victimless” images, because they are not fucking normal people. They are mentally sick, they are sexually turned on by the abuse of a minor, not by the minor but by abusing the minor, sexually.

                  In what world would a person like that stop at looking at images, they actively search for victims, create groups where they share and discuss abusing minors.

                  Yes dude, they are fucking dangerous bro, life is not fair. You wouldn’t say the same shit if some one close to you was a victim.

              • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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                Maybe you should focus your energy on normalized things that actually effect kids like banning full contact sports that cause CTE.

                • Meansalladknifehands@lemm.ee
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                  What do you mean focus your energy, how much energy do you think I spend on discussing perverts? And what should I spend my time discussing contact sports. It’s sound like you are deflecting.

                  Pedophiles get turned on abusing minors, they are mentally sick. It’s not like its a normal sexual desire, they will never stop at watching “victimless” images. Fuck pedophiles they don’t deserve shit, and hope they eat shit he rest of their lives.

            • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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              Real children are in training data regardless of if there is csam in the data or not (which there is a high chance there is considering how they get their training data) so real children are involved

              • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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                I’ve already stated that I do not support using images of real children in the models. Even if the images are safe/legal, it’s a violation of privacy.

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            Nobody is arguing that it’s moral. That’s not the line for government intervention. If it was then the entire private banking system would be in prison.

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    America has some of the most militant anti pedophilic culture in the world but they far and away have the highest rates of child sexual assault.

    I think AI is going to revel is how deeply hypocritical Americans are on this issue. You have gigantic institutions like churches committing industrial scale victimization yet you won’t find a 1/10th of the righteous indignation against other organized religions where there is just as much evidence it is happening as you will regarding one person producing images that don’t actually hurt anyone.

    It’s pretty clear by how staggering a rate of child abuse that occurs in the states that Americans are just using child victims as weaponized politicalization (it’s next to impossible to convincingly fight off pedo accusations if you’re being mobbed) and aren’t actually interested in fighting pedophilia.

    • kandoh@reddthat.com
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      Most states will let grown men marry children as young as 14. There is a special carve out for Christian pedophiles.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        Fortunately most instances are in the category of a 17 year old to an 18 year old, and require parental consent and some manner of judicial approval, but the rates of “not that” are still much higher than one would want.
        ~300k in a 20 year window total, 74% of the older partner being 20 or younger, and 95% of the younger partner being 16 or 17, with only 14% accounting for both partners being under 18.

        There’s still no reason for it in any case, and I’m glad to live in one of the states that said "nah, never needed .

  • UnpluggedFridge@lemmy.world
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    These cases are interesting tests of our first amendment rights. “Real” CP requires abuse of a minor, and I think we can all agree that it should be illegal. But it gets pretty messy when we are talking about depictions of abuse.

    Currently, we do not outlaw written depictions nor drawings of child sexual abuse. In my opinion, we do not ban these things partly because they are obvious fictions. But also I think we recognize that we should not be in the business of criminalizing expression, regardless of how disgusting it is. I can imagine instances where these fictional depictions could be used in a way that is criminal, such as using them to blackmail someone. In the absence of any harm, it is difficult to justify criminalizing fictional depictions of child abuse.

    So how are AI-generated depictions different? First, they are not obvious fictions. Is this enough to cross the line into criminal behavior? I think reasonable minds could disagree. Second, is there harm from these depictions? If the AI models were trained on abusive content, then yes there is harm directly tied to the generation of these images. But what if the training data did not include any abusive content, and these images really are purely depictions of imagination? Then the discussion of harms becomes pretty vague and indirect. Will these images embolden child abusers or increase demand for “real” images of abuse. Is that enough to criminalize them, or should they be treated like other fictional depictions?

    We will have some very interesting case law around AI generated content and the limits of free speech. One could argue that the AI is not a person and has no right of free speech, so any content generated by AI could be regulated in any manner. But this argument fails to acknowledge that AI is a tool for expression, similar to pen and paper.

    A big problem with AI content is that we have become accustomed to viewing photos and videos as trusted forms of truth. As we re-learn what forms of media can be trusted as “real,” we will likely change our opinions about fringe forms of AI-generated content and where it is appropriate to regulate them.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      It comes back to distribution for me. If they are generating the stuff for themselves, gross, but I don’t see how it can really be illegal. But if your distributing them, how do we know their not real? The amount of investigative resources that would need to be dumped into that, and the impact on those investigators mental health, I don’t know. I really don’t have an answer, I don’t know how they make it illegal, but it really feels like distribution should be.

    • yamanii@lemmy.world
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      partly because they are obvious fictions

      That’s it actually, all sites that allow it like danbooru, gelbooru, pixiv, etc. Have a clause against photo realistic content and they will remove it.

    • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
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      It feels incredibly gross to just say “generated CSAM is a-ok, grab your hog and go nuts”, but I can’t really say that it should be illegal if no child was harmed in the training of the model. The idea that it could be a gateway to real abuse comes to mind, but that’s a slippery slope that leads to “video games cause school shootings” type of logic.

      I don’t know, it’s a very tough thing to untangle. I guess I’d just want to know if someone was doing that so I could stay far, far away from them.

    • nucleative@lemmy.world
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      Well thought-out and articulated opinion, thanks for sharing.

      If even the most skilled hyper-realistic painters were out there painting depictions of CSAM, we’d probably still label it as free speech because we “know” it to be fiction.

      When a computer rolls the dice against a model and imagines a novel composition of children’s images combined with what it knows about adult material, it does seem more difficult to label it as entirely fictional. That may be partly because the source material may have actually been real, even if the final composition is imagined. I don’t intend to suggest models trained on CSAM either, I’m thinking of models trained to know what both mature and immature body shapes look like, as well as adult content, and letting the algorithm figure out the rest.

      Nevertheless, as you brought up, nobody is harmed in this scenario, even though many people in our culture and society find this behavior and content to be repulsive.

      To a high degree, I think we can still label an individual who consumes this type of AI content to be a pedophile, and although being a pedophile is not in and of itself an illegal adjective to posses, it comes with societal consequences. Additionally, pedophilia is a DSM-5 psychiatric disorder, which could be a pathway to some sort of consequences for those who partake.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        for some reason the US seems to hold a weird position on this one. I don’t really understand it.

        It’s written to be illegal, but if you look at prosecution cases, i think there have been only a handful of charged cases. The prominent ones which also include relevant previous offenses, or worse.

        It’s also interesting when you consider that there are almost definitely large image boards hosted in the US that host what could be constituted as “cartoon CSAM” notably e621, i’d have to verify their hosting location, but i believe they’re in the US. And so far i don’t believe they’ve ever had any issues with it. And i’m sure there are other good examples as well.

        I suppose you could argue they’re exempt on the publisher rules. But these sites don’t moderate against these images, generally. And i feel like this would be the rare exception where it wouldnt be applicable.

        The law is fucking weird dude. There is a massive disconnect between what we should be seeing, and what we are seeing. I assume because the authorities who moderate this shit almost exclusively go after real CSAM, on account of it actually being a literal offense, as opposed to drawn CSAM, being a proxy offense.

        • PirateJesus@lemmy.today
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          It seems to me to be a lesser charge. A net that catches a larger population and they can then go fishing for bigger fish to make the prosecutor look good. Or as I’ve heard from others, it is used to simplify prosecution. PedoAnon can’t argue “it’s a deepfake, not a real kid” to the SWAT team.

          There is a massive disconnect between what we should be seeing, and what we are seeing. I assume because the authorities who moderate this shit almost exclusively go after real CSAM, on account of it actually being a literal offense, as opposed to drawn CSAM, being a proxy offense. This can be attributed to no proper funding of CSAM enforcement. Pedos get picked up if they become an active embarrassment like the article dude. Otherwise all the money is just spent on the database getting bigger and keeping the lights on. Which works for congress. A public pedo gets nailed to the wall because of the database, the spooky spectre of the pedo out for your kids remains, vote for me please…

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            It seems to me to be a lesser charge. A net that catches a larger population and they can then go fishing for bigger fish to make the prosecutor look good. Or as I’ve heard from others, it is used to simplify prosecution. PedoAnon can’t argue “it’s a deepfake, not a real kid” to the SWAT team.

            ah that could be a possibility as well. Just ensuring reasonable flexibility in prosecution so you can be sure of what you get.

  • PirateJesus@lemmy.today
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    OMG. Every other post is saying their disgusted about the images part but it’s a grey area, but he’s definitely in trouble for contacting a minor.

    Cartoon CSAM is illegal in the United States. AI images of CSAM fall into that category. It was illegal for him to make the images in the first place BEFORE he started sending them to a minor.

    https://www.thefederalcriminalattorneys.com/possession-of-lolicon

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      Yeah that’s toothless. They decided there is no particular way to age a cartoon, they could be from another planet that simply seem younger but are in actuality older.

      It’s bunk, let them draw or generate whatever they want, totally fictional events and people are fair game and quite honestly I’d Rather they stay active doing that then get active actually abusing children.

      Outlaw shibari and I guarantee you’d have multiple serial killers btk-ing some unlucky souls.

        • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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          The problem with AI CSAM generation is that the AI has to be trained on something first. It has to somehow know what a naked minor looks like. And to do that, well… You need to feed it CSAM.

          So is it right to be using images of real children to train these AI? You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks that’s okay.

          • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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            You make the assumption that the person generating the images also trained the AI model. You also make assumptions about how the AI was trained without knowing anything about the model.

            • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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              Are there any guarantees that harmful images weren’t used in these AI models? Based on how image generation works now, it’s very likely that harmful images were used to train the data.

              And if a person is using a model based on harmful training data, they should be held responsible.

              However, the AI owner/trainer has even more responsibility in perpetuating harm to children and should be prosecuted appropriately.

              • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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                And if a person is using a model based on harmful training data, they should be held responsible.

                I will have to disagree with you for several reasons.

                • You are still making assumptions about a system you know absolutely nothing about.
                • By your logic anything born from something that caused suffering from others (this example is AI trained on CSAM) the users of that product should be held responsible for the crime committed to create that product.
                  • Does that apply to every product/result created from human suffering or just the things you don’t like?
                  • Will you apply that logic to the prosperity of Western Nations built on the suffering of indigenous and enslaved people? Should everyone who benefit from western prosperity be held responsible for the crimes committed against those people?
                  • What about medicine? Two examples are The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks. Medicine benefited greatly from these two examples but crimes were committed against the people involved. Should every patient from a cancer program that benefited from Ms. Lacks’ cancer cells also be subject to pay compensation to her family? The doctors that used her cells without permission didn’t.
                  • Should we also talk about the advances in medicine found by Nazis who experimented on Jews and others during WW2? We used that data in our manned space program paving the way to all the benefits we get from space technology.
                • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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                  The difference between the things you’re listing and SAM is that those other things have actual utility outside of getting off. Were our phones made with human suffering? Probably but phones have many more uses than making someone cum. Are all those things wrong? Yea, but at least good came out of it outside of just giving people sexual gratification directly from the harm of others.

                • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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                  The topic that you’re choosing to focus on really interesting. what are your values?

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                Are there any guarantees that harmful images weren’t used in these AI models?

                Lol, highly doubt it. These AI assholes pretend that all the training data randomly fell into the model (off the back of a truck) and that they cannot possibly be held responsible for that or know anything about it because they were too busy innovating.

                There’s no guarantee that most regular porn sites don’t contain csam or other exploitative imagery and video (sex trafficking victims). There’s absolutely zero chance that there’s any kind of guarantee.

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            the AI has to be trained on something first. It has to somehow know what a naked minor looks like. And to do that, well… You need to feed it CSAM.

            First of all, not every image of a naked child is CSAM. This is actually been kind of a problem with automated CSAM detection systems triggering false positives on non-sexual images, and getting innocent people into trouble.

            But also, AI systems can blend multiple elements together. They don’t need CSAM training material to create CSAM, just the individual elements crafted into a prompt sufficient to create the image while avoiding any safeguards.

            • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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              You ignored the second part of their post. Even if it didn’t use any csam is it right to use pictures of real children to generate csam? I really don’t think it is.

              • deathbird@mander.xyz
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                There are probably safeguards in place to prevent the creation of CSAM, just like there are for other illegal and offensive things, but determined people work around them.

            • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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              The images were created using photos of real children even if said photos weren’t CSAM (which can’t be guaranteed they weren’t). So the victims were are the children used to generate CSAM

              • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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                Sure, but isn’t the the perpetrator the company that trained the model without their permission? If a doctor saves someone’s life using knowledge based on nazi medical experiments, then surely the doctor isn’t responsible for the crimes?

                • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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                  So is the car manufacturer responsible if someone drives their car into the sidewalk to kill some people?

                  Your analogy doesn’t match the premise. (Again assuming there is no csam in the training data which is unlikely) the training data is not the problem it is how the data is used. Using those same picture to generate photos of medieval kids eating ice cream with their family is fine. Using it to make CSAM is not.

                  It would be more like the doctor using the nazi experiments to do some other fucked up experiments.

                  (Also you posted your response like 5 times)

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                Let’s do a thought experiment, and I’d look to to tell me at what point a victim was introduced:

                1. I legally acquire pictures of a child, fully clothed and everything
                2. I draw a picture based on those legal pictures, but the subject is nude or doing sexually explicit things
                3. I keep the picture for my own personal use and don’t distribute it

                Or with AI:

                1. I legally acquire pictures of children, fully clothed and everything
                2. I legally acquire pictures of nude adults, some doing sexually explicit things
                3. I train an AI on a mix of 1&2
                4. I generate images of nude children, some of them doing sexually explicit things
                5. I keep the pictures for my own personal use and don’t distribute any of them
                6. I distribute my model, using the right to distribute from the legal acquisition of those images

                At what point did my actions victimize someone?

                If I distributed those images and those images resemble a real person, then that real person is potentially a victim.

                I will say someone who does this creepy and I don’t want them anywhere near children (especially mine, and yes, I have kids), but I don’t think it should be illegal, provided the source material is legal. But as soon as I distribute it, there absolutely could be a victim. Being creepy shouldn’t be a crime.

                • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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                  I think it should be illegal to make porn of a person without their permission regardless of if it was shared or not. Imagine the person it is based off of finds out someone is doing that. That causes mental strain on the person. Just like how revenge porn doesn’t actively harm a person but causes mental strafe (both the initial upload and continued use of it). For scenario 1 it would be at step 2 when the porn is made of the person. For scenario 2 it would be a mix between step 3 and 4.

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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            It has to somehow know what a naked minor looks like.

            Not necessarily

            You need to feed it CSAM

            You don’t. You just need lists of other things, properly tagged. If you feed an AI a bunch of clothed adults and a bunch of naked adults, it will, in theory, “understand” the difference between being clothed and naked and create any of its clothed adults, naked.

            With that initial set above, you feed it a bunch of clothed children. When you ask for a naked child, it will either produce a child head with naked adult body, or a “weird” naked child. It “understands” that adult and child are different things, that clothed and naked are different things, and tries to infer what “naked child” looks like from what it “knows”.

            So is it right to be using images of real children to train these AI?

            This is the real question and one I don’t know the answer to, because it will boil down to consent to being part of a training model, whether your own as an adult, or a child’s parent, much like how it works for stock photos and videos.

            “I consent to having my likeness used for AI training models, except for any use that involves NSFW content” - Fair enough. Good luck enforcing that.

      • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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        My main issue with generation is the ability of making it close enough to reality. Even with the more realistic art stuff, some outright referenced or even traced CSAM. The other issue is the lack of easy differentiation between reality and fiction, and it muddies the water. “I swear officer, I thought it was AI” would become the new “I swear officer, she said she was 18”.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          That is not an end user issue, that’s a dev issue. Can’t train on scam if it isn’t available and as such is tacit admission of actual possession.

      • Mike@lemmy.ml
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        I think the challenge with Generative AI CSAM is the question of where did training data originate? There has to be some questionable data there.

        • scoobford@lemmy.zip
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          That would mean you need to enforce the law for whoever built the model. If the original creator has 100TB of cheese pizza, then they should be the one who gets arrested.

          Otherwise you’re busting random customers at a pizza shop for possession of the meth the cook smoked before his shift.

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          There is also the issue of determining if a given image is real or AI. If AI were legal, that means prosecution would need to prove images are real and not AI with the risk of letting go real offenders.

          The need to ban AI CSAM is even clearer than cartoon CSAM.

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            And in the process force non abusers to seek their thrill with actual abuse, good job I’m sure the next generation of children will appreciate your prudish factually inept effort. We’ve tried this with so much shit, prohibition doesn’t stop anything or just creates a black market and a abusive power system to go with it.

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        Big brain PDF tells the judge it is okay because the person in the picture is now an adult.

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          You can say pedophile… that “pdf file” stuff is so corny and childish. Hey guys lets talk about a serious topic by calling it things like “pdf files” and “Graping”. Jfc

          • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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            Why do people say “graping?” I’ve never heard that.

            Please tell me it doesn’t have to do with “The Grapist” video that came out on early YouTube.

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              Tiktok and Instagram are the main culprits, they’ll shadowban, or outright delist, any content that uses no-no words. Sex, rape, assault, drugs, die, suicide, it’s a rather big list

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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          That’s the issue though. As far as I know it hasn’t been tested in court and it’s quite possible the law is useless and has no teeth.

          With AI porn you can point to real victims whose unconsented pictures were used to train the models, and say that’s abuse. But when it’s just a drawing, who is the victim? Is it just a thought crime? Can we prosecute those?

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      I thought cartoons/illustrations of that nature were only illegal in the UK (Coroners and Justices Act 2008) and Switzerland. TIL about the PROTECT Act.

      • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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        The thing about the PROTECT Act is that it relies on the Miller test, which has obvious holes, and is like depends on who is reviewing it and stuff. I have heard even the UK law has holes which can be exploited.

        • Rayspekt@lemmy.world
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          I wonder if there is significant migration happening into those countries where csam os legal.

          • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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            Most people instead have a trip to a place where underage sex workers are common, one can just have an external hard drive and/or a USB stick for that material which they hide. "An"caps are actively trying to form their own countries, partly to legalize “recordings of crimes” as they like to call them, if not outright to legalize child rape and child sex trafficking.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        Sure, and then some judge starts making subjective decisions on drawn/painted art that didn’t hurt anyone and suddenly people are getting hurt.

        The justice system is supposed to protect society, not hurt people you don’t like.

      • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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        While I do think realistic stuff should be illegal, no question, with the loli/shota/whatever, you’re just opening a can of worms that could be applied to other things too, and some already did.

        Regulators used the very same “normalizing certain sexual acts” to try and censor more extreme form of porn and/or the sexual acts themselves, and partly succeeded in the UK. Sure, scat is gross, many like that exactly due to that. One could even talk about the health risks too. Same with fisting, which is too extreme for many, supposed to be extremely painful because many people’s only exposure to it was from Requiem for a Dream, and has some associated health risks. However, a lot of it is some misrepresentation of the truth, with scat isn’t that big of a health risk if you have a good immune system (rest can be mitigated with precautions and moderation), and fisting isn’t inherently painful (source: me).

        And the same is true about loli/shota. The terms aren’t just applied to actual underage characters, but for the “short adults” common within the VTubing scene, many of which are also shorter in real life (obligatory “of course not all”). Some of those other characters are also adults, that have exaggerated, almost child-like physique. Most of it however is still just some depiction of children, and otherwise I can understand why some wants to abstain from even the “adult loli/shota” stuff. I remember when pubic hair removal was becoming mainstream, and many, like radical feminists, feared it would normalize pedophilia, I even got called a pedo by a pubic hair connoisseur for not really liking it. I also don’t really want to talk over victims of CSA, many of who want it banned, many of who want it legal.

        As for normalizing: The greatest normalization is done by pedos getting into the fandom to recruit others, and entertain the idea of a lower age of consent. For a long time, we threw out these motherfuckers from our community. But then 4chan happened, and suddenly these very same people just started screaming “it’s just an edgy joke bro”, so at one point people trying to keep these creeps out of the anime community in general became villainified, and with gamergate and the culture wars hitting the scene, “gatekeeping the normies” became the priority, so these sick fucks became a feature, which created in the anime community

        • a nazi/pedo/weird gatekeeping free space,
        • and a space that doesn’t moralize about loli/shota.

        I had a lot of connections to victims of CSA, most of them were teens, none were groomed by loli/shota (everyone’s mileage will vary on it, likely different in the age of the internet), but by either some non-pornographic work featuring a teen girl and an older man (usually in historic setting), or just by the perpetrator likening a 25+yo guy (often they lied they were way younger) going out with a 14 yo girl to her parents age gap (I’m in Hungary, where that’s technically legal🤮). Usually a simple “that big age gap isn’t okay in your age” talk did wonders, unless the only way for the girl to eat that day was to go out with that guy.

  • Kedly@lemm.ee
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    Ah yes, more bait articles rising to the top of Lemmy. The guy was arrested for grooming, he was sending these images to a minor. Outside of Digg, anyone have any suggestions for an alternative to Lemmy and Reddit? Lemmy’s moderation quality is shit, I think I’m starting to figure out where I lean on the success of my experimental stay with Lemmy

    Edit: Oh god, I actually checked digg out after posting this and the site design makes it look like you’re actually scrolling through all of the ads at the bottom of a bulshit clickbait article

    • cum@lemmy.cafe
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      You can go to an instance that follows your views closer and start blocking instances that post low quality content to you. Lemmy is a protocol, it’s not a single community. So the moderation and post quality is going to be determined by the instance you’re on and the community you’re with.

      • ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        This is throwing a blanket over the problem. When the mods of a news community allow bait articles to stay up because they (presumably) further their views, it should be called out as a problem.

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      Lemmy as a whole does not have moderation. Moderators on Lemmy.today cannot moderate Lemmy.world or Lemmy ml, they can only remove problematic posts as they come and as they see fit or block entire instances which is rare.

      If you want stricter content rules than any of the available federated instances then you’ll have to either:

      1. Use a centralized platform like Reddit but they’re going to sell you out for data profits and you’ll still have to occasionally deal with shit like “The Donald.”

      2. Start your own instance with a self hosted server and create your own code of conduct and hire moderators to enforce it.

      • Kedly@lemm.ee
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        Yeah, I know, thats why I’m finding lemmy not for me. This new rage bait every week is tiring and not adding anything to my life except stress, and once I started looking at who the moderaters were when Lemmy’d find a new thing to rave about, I found that often there was 1-3 actual moderators, which, fuck that. With reddit, the shit subs were the exception, here it feels like they ALL (FEEL being a key word here) have a tendency to dive face first into rage bait

        Edit: Most of the reddit migration happened because Reddit fucked over their moderators, a lot of us were happy with well moderated discussions, and if we didnt care to have moderators, we could have just stayed with reddit after the moderators were pushed away

  • Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
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    This is tough, the goal should be to reduce child abuse. It’s unknown if AI generated CP will increase or reduce child abuse. It will likely encourage some individuals to abuse actual children while for others it may satisfy their urges so they don’t abuse children. Like everything else AI, we won’t know the real impact for many years.

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        Lol you don’t need to train it ON CSAM to generate CSAM. Get a clue.

        • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          It should be illegal either way, to be clear. But you think theyre not training models on CSAM? Youre trusting in the morality/ethics of people creating AI generated child pornography?

          • Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
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            The use of CSAM in training generative AI models is an issue no matter how these models are being used.

            • L_Acacia@lemmy.one
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              The training doesn’t use csam, 0% chance big tech would use that in their dataset. The models are somewhat able to link concept like red and car, even if it had never seen a red car before.

              • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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                Well, with models like SD at least, the datasets are large enough and the employees are few enough that it is impossible to have a human filter every image. They scrape them from the web and try to filter with AI, but there is still a chance of bad images getting through. This is why most companies install filters after the model as well as in the training process.

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                  You make it sound like it is so easy to even find such content on the www. The point is, they do not need to be trained on such material. They are trained on regular kids, so they know their sizes, faces, etc. They’re trained on nude bodies, so they also know how hairless genitals or flat chests look like. You don’t need to specifically train a model on nude children to generate nude children.

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        I suggest you actually download stable diffusion and try for yourself because it’s clear that you don’t have any clue what you’re talking about. You can already make tiny people, shaved, genitals, flat chests, child like faces, etc. etc. It’s all already there. Literally no need for any LoRAs or very specifically trained models.

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    He then allegedly communicated with a 15-year-old boy, describing his process for creating the images, and sent him several of the AI generated images of minors through Instagram direct messages. In some of the messages, Anderegg told Instagram users that he uses Telegram to distribute AI-generated CSAM. “He actively cultivated an online community of like-minded offenders—through Instagram and Telegram—in which he could show off his obscene depictions of minors and discuss with these other offenders their shared sexual interest in children,” the court records allege. “Put differently, he used these GenAI images to attract other offenders who could normalize and validate his sexual interest in children while simultaneously fueling these offenders’ interest—and his own—in seeing minors being sexually abused.”

    I think the fact that he was promoting child sexual abuse and was communicating with children and creating communities with them to distribute the content is the most damning thing, regardless of people’s take on the matter.

    Umm … That AI generated hentai on the page of the same article, though … Do the editors have any self-awareness? Reminds me of the time an admin decided the best course of action to call out CSAM was to directly link to the source.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      Wait do you think all Hentai is CSAM?

      And sending the images to a 15 year old crosses the line no matter how he got the images.

    • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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      Umm … That AI generated hentai on the page of the same article, though … Do the editors have any self-awareness? Reminds me of the time an admin decided the best course of action to call out CSAM was to directly link to the source.

      The image depicts mature women, not children.

      • BangCrash@lemmy.world
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        Correct. And OP’s not saying it is.

        But to place that sort of image on an article about CSAM is very poorly thought out

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    I had an idea when these first AI image generators started gaining traction. Flood the CSAM market with AI generated images( good enough that you can’t tell them apart.) In theory this would put the actual creators of CSAM out of business, thus saving a lot of children from the trauma.

    Most people down vote the idea on their gut reaction tho.

    Looks like they might do it on their own.

    • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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      It’s such an emotional topic that people lose all rationale. I remember the Reddit arguments in the comment sections about pedos, already equalizing the term with actual child rapists, while others would argue to differentiate because the former didn’t do anything wrong and shouldn’t be stigmatized for what’s going on in their heads but rather offered help to cope with it. The replies are typically accusations of those people making excuses for actual sexual abusers.

      I always had the standpoint that I do not really care about people’s fictional content. Be it lolis, torture, gore, or whatever other weird shit. If people are busy & getting their kicks from fictional stuff then I see that as better than using actual real life material, or even getting some hands on experiences, which all would involve actual real victims.

      And I think that should be generally the goal here, no? Be it pedos, sadists, sociopaths, whatever. In the end it should be not about them, but saving potential victims. But people rather throw around accusations and become all hysterical to paint themselves sitting on their moral high horse (ironically typically also calling for things like executions or castrations).

    • Itwasthegoat@lemmy.world
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      My concern is why would it put them out of business? If we just look at legal porn there is already beyond huge amounts already created, and the market is still there for new content to be created constantly. AI porn hasn’t noticeably decreased the amount produced.

      Really flooding the market with CSAM makes it easier to consume and may end up INCREASING the amount of people trying to get CSAM. That could end up encouraging more to be produced.

      • Nora@lemmy.ml
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        The market is slightly different tho. Most CSAM is images, with Porn theres a lot of video and images.

    • jaschen@lemm.ee
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      It’s also a victimless crime. Just like flooding the market with fake rhino horns and dropping the market price to a point that it isn’t worth it.

    • PirateJesus@lemmy.today
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      It would be illegal in the United States. Artistic depictions of CSAM are illegal under the PROTECT act 2003.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        And yet it’s out there in droves on mainstream sites, completely without issue. Drawings and animations are pretty unpoliced.

  • badbytes@lemmy.world
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    Breaking news: Paint made illegal, cause some moron painted something stupid.

    • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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      I’d usually agree with you, but it seems he sent them to an actual minor for “reasons”.

    • PirateJesus@lemmy.today
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      Asked whether more funding will be provided for the anti-paint enforcement divisions: it’s such a big backlog, we’ll rather just wait for somebody to piss of a politician to focus our resources.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      Some places do lock up spray paint due to its use in graffiti, so that’s not without precedent.

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
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        They lock it up because it’s frequently stolen. (Because of its use in graffiti, but still.)

    • deathbird@mander.xyz
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      It would not need to be trained on CP. It would just need to know what human bodies can look like and what sex is.

      AIs usually try not to allow certain content to be produced, but it seems people are always finding ways to work around those safeguards.

      • desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        AIs usually try not to allow certain content to be produced, but it seems people are always finding ways to work around those safeguards.

        Local model go brrrrrr

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      Likely yes, and even commercial models have an issue with CSAM leaking into their datasets. The scummiest of all of them likelyget one offline model, then add their collection of CSAM to it.

  • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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    Isn’t there evidence that as artificial CSAM is made more available, the actual amount of abuse is reduced? I would research this but I’m at work.

    • SeattleRain@lemmy.world
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      Well yeah. Just because something makes you really uncomfortable doesn’t make it a crime. A crime has a victim.

      Also, the vast majority of children are victimized because of the US’ culture of authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism. That’s why far and away children are victimized by either a relative or in a church. But y’all ain’t ready to have that conversation.

      • sugartits@lemmy.world
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        That thing over there being wrong doesn’t mean we can’t discuss this thing over here also being wrong.

        So perhaps pipe down with your dumb whataboutism.

        • SeattleRain@lemmy.world
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          It’s not whataboutism, he’s being persecuted because of the idea that he’s hurting children all the while law enforcement refuses to truly persecute actual institutions victimizing children and are often colluding with traffickers. For instance LE throughout the country were well aware of the scale of the Catholic church’s crimes for generations.

          How is this whataboutism.

          • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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            Just to be clear here, he’s not actually persecuted for generating such imagery like the headline implies.

          • sugartits@lemmy.world
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            Because it’s two different things.

            We should absolutely go after the Catholic church for the crimes committed.

            But here we are talking about the creation of child porn.

            If you cannot understand this very simple premise, then we have nothing else to discuss.

            • SeattleRain@lemmy.world
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              They’re not two different things. They’re both supposedly acts of pedophilia except one would take actual courage to prosecute (churches) and the other which doesn’t have any actual victims is easy and is a PR get because certain people find it really icky.

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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      First of all, it’s absolutely crazy to link to a 6 month old thread just to complain that you go downvoted in it. You’re pretty clearly letting this site get under your skin if you’re still hanging onto these downvotes.

      Second, none of your 6 responses in that thread are logical, rational responses. You basically just assert that things that you find offensive enough should be illegal, and then just type in all caps at everyone who explains to you that this isn’t good logic.

      The only way we can consider child porn prohibition constitutional is to interpret it as a protection of victims. Since both the production and distribution of child porn hurt the children forced into it, we ban it outright, not because it is obscene, but because it does real damage. This fits the logic of many other forms of non-protected speech, such as the classic “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre” example, where those hurt in the inevitable panic are victims.

      Expanding the definition of child porn to include fully fictitious depictions, such as lolicon or AI porn, betrays this logic because there are no actual victims. This prohibition is rooted entirely in the perceived obscenity of the material, which is completely unconstitutional. We should never ban something because it is offensive, we should only ban it when it does real harm to actual victims.

      I would argue that rape and snuff film should be illegal for the same reason.

      The reason people disagree with you so strongly isn’t because they think AI generated pedo content is “art” in the sense that we appreciate it and defend it. We just strongly oppose your insistence that we should enforce obscenity laws. This logic is the same logic used as a cudgel against many other issues, including LGBTQ rights, as it basically argues that sexually disagreeable ideas should be treated as a criminal issue.

      I think we all agree that AI pedo content is gross, and the people who make it and consume it are sick. But nobody is with you on the idea that drawings and computer renderings should land anyone in prison.

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        6 months ago

        First of all, it’s absolutely crazy to link to a 6 month old thread just to complain that you go downvoted in it. You’re pretty clearly letting this site get under your skin if you’re still hanging onto these downvotes.

        No, I just… Remembered the thread? Wasn’t difficult to remember it. Took me a minute to find it.

        This may surprise you but CP isn’t something I discuss very often.

        I don’t lose sleep over people defending CP as “art”, nor did it get under my skin. I just think these are fucking idiots and are for some baffling reason trying to defend the indefensible and go about my day. I’m not going to do anything about it, but I’m sure glad I don’t have such dumb comments linked to a public account with my IP address logged somewhere…

        I just raised it to make my point.

        I didn’t bother reading the rest of your essay. Its pretty clear from the first paragraph where you’re going to land.