Pedos ruin everything…
What a terrible thing to try to unravel. And something we as a society should be very focused on solving.
Obviously there is little someone can do to prevent it since it can run locally. Making the exchange of CSAM illegal is easier.
I just hope the AI stuff reduces the exploitation of real children.
Then maybe we can focus on therapy for these sick minded fucks that create and consume CSAM.
I work for a hosting provider and recently we received a report about a user hosting AI generated CSAM, I verified it and forwarded it to the legal team. They told him to GTFO.
He left a negative review because we “wouldn’t let him host AI generated content”. Nuh-uh sir, that is not why. Some people are just so out of touch with reality.
wouldn’t let him host AI-generated content
Man this thing where people try to generalize their actions into innocence is a trip.
I thought the same, but the article puts it into perspective - first training anything requires having content on hand, and that means children were exploited to get it. Second, by enabling and allowing it it allows only deeper desires, possibly pushing people even further. Definitely above our paygrades here to determine if that’s good or bad. The letter calls out that by allowing it we as society are normalizing it, saying it’s okay, and we definitely do not want it normalized.
Unfortunately, this does probably mean the end of the wild west of AI generation. I don’t think this will stop tools from being created, it sounds like (even though Ars somehow demonized the term ‘open source’) tools like SD and training are going to stick around. (Probably because they know they’d just be forked and continued on later). But I think we’re going to see a lot more regulation on sharing models. Right now there are a few obvious sites with things being shared that even I’ve been shocked are allowed, I think we’re going to see a lot more rules on what can and can’t be uploaded.
Even as the tech gets easier, fine tuning and training models is a much more involved process that most people won’t want to go through, and so stopping the sharing of those models will cut down on the vast majority. (Similar to those who share vs consume illegal material already on the internet)
Looks like the first step they’re calling for is basically saying even if CSAM was created by AI, it should still be classified legally as CSAM, and so trading it and sharing it means a one way ticket to jail, and I’m okay with that personally.
Actually, the image generation models can most likely generate that kind of material without ever having seen it before. There probably are people out there training them with real material, but it’s not an absolute prerequisite. They can generalize enough to create that combination from legal pornography and normal images of children
Yup, same reason why you can ask for a fox using a crocodile as a mech and get a good result. The model has the concept of all things requested and mixes them (with varying success).
first training anything requires having content on hand, and that means children were exploited to get it
Does it actually require that, though? I feel like a model trained on a sufficiently diverse selection of adult humans would be able to render an approximation of CSAM even if no CSAM was actually used to create the model. If not now, then very, very soon.
I’m not sure what to do about that, but I am sure that rather than something reasonable like what you’ve said (focusing on the distribution of such material), privacy will end up in the crosshairs, as usual. Humans have always used tools as extensions of ourselves, and these generative tools will soon be used as yet another extension to the mind, up there with search engines. I worry that the legislative responses we actually see on this will stray closer to thought-crime than I’m comfortable with.
You’re probably right, on both accounts.
I’m worried about that too. While for me the jury is still out in my mind if using a tool like SD should count as art in terms of copyright (since it was trained on art that artists didn’t give permission for, especially for use in commercial cases), I think it’s a completely different question on if using it should be regulated.
At the end of the day, these pedos can still pick up a pen and paper and draw what they want, is this not just doing the same thing but with tech? Now sharing that content can be discussed, but regulating what someone can create does feel wrong
I thought I read some years ago about a supreme court ruling that “fictional” abuse material was legal because there is no real victim. Maybe that has been superseded by later rulings.
What will happen here is they will push an overly-broad law that will include art/drawings in yet another example of broad overreach.
I’m old enough to remember the Nirvana album being used as a scapegoat for overreaching religious fucks
The ruling was that “fictional” abuse material was legal because it was an expression of free speech. Courts have thus far unanimously agreed, however, that generative AI doesn’t constitute authorship. Under the same principle, generative AI should not constitute protected speech under the 1st Amendment.
I don’t follow that logic. We would be in bad shape if we applied the standard of copyrightability to protected speech. By that logic, making a derivative Winnie The Pooh work would be unprotected speech on the grounds that it was public domain.
Legally this is going to be a mess. In theory I agree that CSAM that is photorealistic should be illegal (mainly because it won’t be long before a AI generations are completely indistinguishable from photos, and we can’t just ignore real child abuse), but how do you define photorealistism or CSAM when the subjects literally don’t exist? I figure if this kind of thing ever hits the courtroom there will be wildly different verdicts and sentences.
Its always been illegal to draw csam though no? I imagine it’ll all follow a similar system (with pedos always trying to leak through the cracks with shit like lolis, and actual people getting hurt by it cause they’re above age but don’t look it. Ugh its gonna be a mess)
Lolis are usually drawings. You can go even further than that though. It’s incredibly easy to find drawings or hi-def renderings of characters that are absolutely not adults. No one’s prosecuting them for creation or distribution. This likely hinges on the content being obviously not real, but “real” is subjective and with AI gen the grey area got 10x bigger.
Really easy to see where this is going.
“open source image synthesis technologies such as Stable Diffusion allow the creation of AI-generated pornography with ease, and a large community has formed around tools and add-ons that enhance this ability. Since these AI models are openly available and often run locally, there are sometimes no guardrails preventing someone from creating sexualized images of children, and that has rung alarm bells among the nation’s top prosecutors. (It’s worth noting that Midjourney, DALL-E, and Adobe Firefly all have built-in filters that bar the creation of pornographic content.)”
Paid software that can be reined it so it doesn’t compete with Netflix and disney is fine, the open source stuff is satan spawn.
The easy solution would be to go after the ones that distribute the pictures, this is only about keeping the gravy train going.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Wednesday, American attorneys general from all 50 states and four territories sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to establish an expert commission to study how generative AI can be used to exploit children through child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
In particular, open source image synthesis technologies such as Stable Diffusion allow the creation of AI-generated pornography with ease, and a large community has formed around tools and add-ons that enhance this ability.
Since these AI models are openly available and often run locally, there are sometimes no guardrails preventing someone from creating sexualized images of children, and that has rung alarm bells among the nation’s top prosecutors.
Establishing a proper balance between the necessity of protecting children from exploitation and not unduly hamstringing a rapidly unfolding tech field (or impinging on individual rights) may be difficult in practice, which is likely why the attorneys general recommend the creation of a commission to study any potential regulation.
In the past, some well-intentioned battles against CSAM in technology have included controversial side effects, opening doors for potential overreach that could affect the privacy and rights of law-abiding people.
Similarly, the letter’s authors use a dramatic call to action to convey the depth of their concern: "We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI.
The original article contains 960 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Shit like this is why I refuse to bring a child into this world. It’s neither safe enough, nor worthy enough for such a gift.
Having a child isn’t a gift to the world, there are way, way too many people here already.
We’re over carrying capacity and growing, last I heard it would take 4 Earths to support our current population.
the problem with that is primarily to do with irresponsible human stewardship. Food production is already sufficient to end world hunger, we are just (collectively) unwilling to put in the effort to do so as yet. Almost a fifth of global food production goes to waste.
Agreed, but we don’t have time for hypotheticals. We need to work with the reality we live in.
We’ll agree to disagree on this.
I agree with this, but don’t have much hope of anything passing. They didn’t outlaw underage hentai, so I feel like this is an uphill battle they’ll give up on.
