• Empricorn
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    25 days ago

    This is tough. If it was just a sicko who generated the images for himself locally… that is the definition of a victimless crime, no? And it might actually dissuade him from seeking out real CSAM…

    BUT, iirc he was actually distributing the material, and even contacted minors, so… yeah he definitely needed to be arrested.

    But, I’m still torn on the first scenario…

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      But, I’m still torn on the first scenario…

      To me it comes down to a single question:

      “Does exposure and availability to CSAM for pedophiles correlate with increased or decreased likelihood of harming a child?”

      If there’s a reduction effect by providing an outlet for arousal that isn’t actually harming anyone - that sounds like a pretty big win.

      If there’s a force multiplier effect where exposure and availability means it’s even more of an obsession and focus such that there’s increased likelihood to harm children, then society should make the AI generated version illegal too.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          24 days ago

          How they’ve done it in the past is by tracking the criminal history of people caught with csam, arrested for abuse, or some combination thereof, or by tracking the outcomes of people seeking therapy for pedophilia.

          It’s not perfect due to the sample biases, but the results are also quite inconsistent, even amongst similar populations.

      • state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de
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        25 days ago

        I think the general consensus is that availability of CSAM is bad, because it desensitizes and makes harming of actual children more likely. But I must admit that I only remember reading about that and don’t have a scientific source.

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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        25 days ago

        Image-generating AI is capable of generating images that are not like anything that was in its training set.

        • Dave@lemmy.nz
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          25 days ago

          In that case probably the strongest argument is that if it were legal, many people would get off charges of real CSAM because the prosecuter can’t prove that it wasn’t AI generated.

          • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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            25 days ago

            Better a dozen innocent men go to prison than one guilty man go free?

            • Dave@lemmy.nz
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              25 days ago

              In this case if they know it’s illegal, then they knowingly broke the law? Things are still illegal even if you don’t agree with it.

              Most (many?) Western countries also ban cartoon underage content, what’s the justification for that?

              • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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                25 days ago

                You suggested a situation where “many people would get off charges of real CSAM because the prosecuter can’t prove that it wasn’t AI generated.” That implies that in that situation AI-generated CSAM is legal. If it’s not legal then what does it matter if it’s AI-generated or not?

                • Dave@lemmy.nz
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                  25 days ago

                  That’s not quite what I was getting at over the course of the comment thread.

                  It one scenario, AI material is legal. Those with real CSAM use the defense that it’s actually AI and you can’t prove otherwise. In this scenario, no innocent men are going to prison, and most guilty men aren’t either.

                  The second scenario we make AI material illegal. Now the ones with real CSAM go to prison, and many people with AI material do too because it’s illegal and they broke the law.

                  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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                    25 days ago

                    This comment thread started with you implying that the AI was trained on illegal material, I’m really not sure how it’s got to this point from that one.

              • HubertManne@kbin.social
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                24 days ago

                Im completely against restrictions on art depictions and writing. Those don’t have the dangers of being real but being pawned off as fake.

              • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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                25 days ago

                The comment I’m responding to is proposing a situation in which it isn’t illegal.

            • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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              25 days ago

              If it’s illegal, and they produce the AI CSAM anyway, they’ve broken the law and are by definition not Innocent.

            • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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              25 days ago

              To be honest, if it prevents that one guilty man from carrying out such high degrees of abuse to a dozen children, I can’t say I’d say no.

              I want to stress that this isn’t sensationalist grandstanding like wanting to ban rock music or video games or spying on all digital communication in the name of protecting the children. It’s just the pragmatic approach towards preventing CSAM in an age where the “know it when I see it” definition of pornographic material is starting to blur the lines.

              • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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                25 days ago

                Well, your philosophy runs counter to the fundamentals of Western justice systems, then.

                • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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                  24 days ago

                  Why is that? I’d consider this equivalent to the (justified) banning of Nazi imagery in countries like Germany, Austria, Norway, Australia, etc.

                  No one is harmed by a piece of paper or cloth with a symbol on it, but harm happens because of the symbol’s implications.

                  “Authorized” AI-generated or illustrated depictions of CSAM validate the sexualization of children in general, and should not be permitted, in my opinion. If it enables real CSAM to continue, then AI-generated content is not victimless, and therefore I don’t think these hypothetical individuals going to prison for it are necessarily innocent.

                  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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                    25 days ago

                    It’s not the specific thing being made illegal, it’s the underlying philosophy of “Better a dozen innocent men go to prison than one guilty man go free” I’m arguing against here. Most western justice systems operate under a principle of requiring guilt to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and if there is doubt then guilt cannot be considered proven and the person is not convicted.

                    The comment I’m responding to is proposing a situation where non-AI-generated images are illegal but AI-generated ones aren’t, and that there’s no way to tell the difference just by looking at the image itself. In that situation you couldn’t convict someone merely based on the existence of the image because it could have been AI-generated. That’s fundamental to the “innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt” philosophy I’m talking about, to do otherwise would mean that innocent people could very easily be convicted of crimes they didn’t do.

          • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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            25 days ago

            If it has images of construction equipment and houses, it can make images of houses that look like construction equipment. Swap out vocabulary as needed.

            • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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              25 days ago

              Cool, how would it know what a naked young person looks like? Naked adults look significantly different.

                • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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                  25 days ago

                  Is a kid just a 60% reduction by volume of an adult? And these are generative algorithms… nobody really understands how it perceives the world and word relations.

                  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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                    25 days ago

                    It understands young and old. That means it knows a kid is not just a 60% reduction by volume of an adult.

                    We know it understands these sorts of things because of the very things this whole kerfuffle is about - it’s able to generate images of things that weren’t explicitly in its training set.

                  • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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                    25 days ago

                    Just go ask a model to show you, with legal subject matter

      • Empricorn
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        25 days ago

        Very, very good point. Depending on the answer, I retract the “victimless” narrative.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      24 days ago

      I’m fine with it just being illegal, but realistically you could just ban the transmission and distribution of it and then you cover enforceable scenarios. You can police someone sending or posting that stuff, it’s probably next to impossible to police someone generating it at home.

    • lolrightythen@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      Agreed. And props for making a point that isn’t palatable. The first one is complicated. Not many folk I talk to can set aside their revulsion and consider the situation logically. I wish we didn’t have to in the first place.

    • 0110010001100010@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      It’s interesting your bring this up. Not long ago I was having basically this exact same discussion with my brother. Baring you second point, I honestly don’t know how I feel.

      On the one hand - if it’s strictly images for himself and it DOES dissuade seeking out real CSAM (I’m not convinced of this) then I don’t really see the issue.

      On the other hand - I feel like it could be a gateway to something more (your second point). Kinda like a drug, right? You need a heavier and heavier hit to keep the same high. Seems like it wouldn’t be a stretch to go from AI generated imagery to actual CSAM.

      But yeah, I don’t know. We live in an odd time for sure.

      • Fal@yiffit.net
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        25 days ago

        On the other hand - I feel like it could be a gateway to something m

        You mean like marijuana and violent video games?

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          25 days ago

          Except in the case of pornography, it’s an open question if viewing it has a net increase or decrease in sexual desire.
          With legal pornography, it’s typically correlated with higher sexual desire. This tracks intuitively, since the existence of pornography does not typically seem to line up with a drop in people looking for romantic partners.

          There’s little reason to believe it works the other way around for people attracted to children.
          What’s unknown is if that desire is enough to outweigh the legal consequences they’re aware of, or any social or ethical boundaries present.
          Studies have been done, but finding people outside of the legal system who abuse children is exceptionally difficult, even before the ethical obligation to report them to the police would trash the study.
          So the studies end up focusing either on people actively seeking treatment for unwanted impulses (less likely to show a correlation), or people engaged with the legal system in some capacity (more likely to show correlation).

        • Empricorn
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          25 days ago

          Holy strawman, Batman! Just because someone uses the term “gateway” doesn’t mean they think that games and weed are going to turn all people and frogs gay and violent.

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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        25 days ago

        First off, this is obviously a sticky topic. Every conversation is controversial and speculative.

        Second, I don’t really see a lot of legitimacy to the “gateway” concept. The vast majority of people use some variety of drug (caffeine, alcohol, nicotine), and that doesn’t really reliably predict “harder” drug use. Lots of people use marijuana and that doesn’t reliably predict hard drug use. Obviously, the people who use heroin and meth have probably used cocaine and ketamine, and weed before that, and alcohol/caffeine/nicotine before that, but that’s not really a “gateway” pipeline so much as paying through finer and finer filters. As far as I know, the concept has fallen pretty heavily out of favor with serious researchers.

        In light of that perspective, I think you have to consider the goal. Is your goal to punish people, or to reduce the number and severity of victims? Mine is the latter. Personally, I think this sort of thing peels off many more low-level offenders to low-effort outlets than it emboldens to higher-severity outlets. I think this is ultimately a mental-health problem, and zero-tolerance mandatory reporting (while well-meaning) does more harm than good.

        I’d rather that those with these kinds of mental issues have 1. the tools to take the edge off in victimless ways 2. safe spaces to discuss these inclinations without fear of incarceration. I think blockading those avenues yields a net increase the number and severity of victims.

        This seems like a net benefit, reducing the overall number and severity of actual victims.

      • Empricorn
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        25 days ago

        Thanks for being honest and well-meaning. Sorry you’re getting downvoted, we both said pretty much exactly the same thing! A difficult subject, but important to get right…