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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I guess we disagree on the criteria for innocent. I don't see possession of such images as an innocent act, especially now that it is impossible to verify what is real or fake.
We aren't disagreeing because that's not what I was addressing in the first place. The comment I'm responding to, from Dave, reads:
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.
Emphasis added. The premise of the scenario is that possession of such images (ie, AI-generated CSAM) is not illegal. Given that, for purposes of argument, it follows that this would indeed be a valid defense. You'd need to prove in court that the CSAM pictures that you're charging someone with possessing are not AI-generated, in that scenario.
If you want to have a wider discussion of whether AI-generated CSAM images should be illegal, that's a separate matter.
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.
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).
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.
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...
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.
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.