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AI-generated child sexual abuse images could flood the internet. A watchdog is calling for action (apnews.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Except if we're talking about allowing regulated use of AI-generated child porn as a treatment for paedophilia (which is the core discussion in this thread, whether AI-generated child porn could be helpful), then it cannot be left to paedophiles themselves to create their own models based on the honour system of promising that nobody will use photos of real children in the training data. Just like absolutely no aspect of AI can be left unregulated, trusting on everyone to behave honourably... because so far, nobody has been. Not just in the field of AI-generated child porn. All of AI has been developed with an astounding level of unethical behaviour, and it's nothing short of complete naivety to believe that anyone is going to behave ethically going forward. If AI is to be considered in any way ethical, then it needs regulation beyond simply asking people to pinky swear that they will only use legally and ethically obtained content for training. Regulation requires oversight and enforcement, otherwise regulation is meaningless. And you can't regulate child porn AI without having innocent human beings subjected to the inputs and outputs to ensure regulations are being followed.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    As I said above, though, you don't need to make a model that's specifically "for child porn" in order for it to be able to generate child porn. There are already probably plenty of models that know what children look like and also know what porn looks like, made simply by teaching a model about lots of diverse subjects that happened to include both of those subject areas in them. You can even make new models by merging two existing models together or by adding more training to an existing model, so you wouldn't even need to have those images be part of the same training run.

    I obviously haven't ever tried generating child porn, but I fired up my local Stable Diffusion with the Cyberrealistic model and generated a toddler on the moon and a toddler riding a lion. I'm reasonably confident that the model wasn't literally trained with images of toddlers in space suits or toddlers riding large wild predators, it was trained on those concepts separately and was able to figure out for itself how to combine them. Notice how it was able to figure out that a toddler on the moon would be in a space suit and re-proportioned the space suit accordingly, and that a saddle used by a toddler would probably have handlebars (I'm guessing it has a bunch of images of toddlers riding ponies that it got that idea from).

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    @the_third@feddit.de did a very good post above explaining the problem with the idea of thinking AI-generated child porn would be as simple as asking for non-abusive photos of children to be combined with photos of adult porn. The AI needs to know what each component of the image should look like. AI knows what toddlers look like, and it knows what a lion looks like. Where do you propose the photos of child genitals should come from in order to create these ethical AI-generated child abuse images?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Medical textbooks.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Probably fine for child abuse porn in a drawn style, like loli, but probably not sufficient for the photorealistic porn that it is supposedly intended to replace.

    This is ultimately the flaw in your argument that an AI can produce "new" works because it doesn't need to have seen a toddler riding a lion on the moon to be able to produce that image. If you didn't give AI photos of lions, it would never be able to create a lion. If you never gave it photos of toddlers, it would never be able to do a picture of a toddler. And if there were no photos of the moon in its training data, it would be incapable of producing the moon. It cannot create things it has not seen. It can only arrange things it has seen in combinations that may or may not have been previously thought of (with billions of images in the training data, you can't say there isn't a Photoshopped photo of a toddler on the moon in there.)

    Without actual child porn in its training data, it would never be able to produce any, because even when it's capable of piecing individual elements together into a "new" piece (basically an advanced collage), if there's no images of children being abused in the training data, it's not going to be able to piece it together by putting a child's head on an adult's naked body, and result in anything that's more satisfactory for paedophiles than actual photos of children. There is therefore no ethical means of producing AI-generated child porn, and therefore it is not an ethical alternative. Somewhere in the chain, there are still children being abused.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I think you haven't made much use of image-generating AIs. They're quite capable of reinterpreting images into different styles. A very common use case for me is to draw a sketch of something and then tell an image AI to turn it photorealistic. The "automated collage" approach you describe is simply not how they work, it's a common misconception. Image AIs very much can create imagery of things that weren't explicitly in their training set, they're not just regurgitating pasted-together snippets.

    You're also assuming that there are no literal photographs of children's genitals in medical literature. Again, I haven't exactly gone looking, but I'm sure there are some out there. Doctors can't afford to be prudish.

    And finally, you can get plenty pornographic without even specifically showing off genitals.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Oh, so you mean the photos in the training dataset that violate medical privacy, because parents who consented to photos of their child being included in textbooks and medical journals for educational purposes didn't consent to photos of their child being used for AI-generated child porn for the sexual gratification of paedophiles? The only way photos of children from medical literature would be ethical to use for child porn is if the parents of the child have consented to that usage. Having had surgery last year, where photos were taken, I can confirm there are extensive consent forms to be filled out for what medical professionals can record (photos, videos, livestreaming, etc), and what they can use the visual records for (research, education/training, sharing cosmetic outcomes on social media, etc). Parents that will have checked the "can use photos of my child for research and education" will not have given informed consent for those photos to be inserted into an AI model for child porn, and are unlikely to give consent if "child porn AI" is a separate box on the consent form.

    So... yeah, you're not convincing me using medical photos of vulnerable children in hospital settings to create fapping material for paedophiles is an ethical use of AI technology.

    And an AI without photos of lions is never going to be able to produce a photorealistic lion, even if you gave it a sketch of a lion, because it would have no frame of reference for what a lion is supposed to look like. It would make its best guess, which is fine for when it's something that doesn't really exist - but when humans know what a lion is meant to look like, they'll know when an AI botches it.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Oh, so you mean the photos in the training dataset that violate medical privacy

    If they're published in a textbook then they're not private.

    will not have given informed consent for those photos to be inserted into an AI model for child porn

    Again, an AI model doesn't have to be created specifically for the purpose of child porn in order for it to be able to generate child porn. Most of these AI image models are very general purpose, they can create images of all kinds of things.

    We're going in circles here and you're just getting angrier in your responses, I don't think this is headed anywhere useful at this point.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Dude how are you going to regulate AI?!!

    Like by all means go after people harming others, but man... You realize you have no control right? Black markets THRIVE in this world. Like fuck, they can't even keep drugs out of prison.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    The fact that regulation is imperfect doesn't mean the solution is to do absolutely nothing and let AI be used by bad actors (including those feeding real child porn into it) with impunity.

    The entire conversation in the comments here have been "well if AI child porn stops paedophiles from hurting real children, then it has a use", but in order to prevent real children being used for the training data, it has to be regulated. In fact, you'll find that the majority of Beehaw users (since I notice you are from a different instance) are in favour of AI being properly regulated. "Some people will break the law anyway" is no excuse not to have laws.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Sorry, I really don't support your perspective. If you have reasonable suspicion to believe real child porn is being used in these models prove it to a judge and get a warrant. If someone is a bad actor to the point of criminal intent, prove it to a judge, and bring it to court.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's not how the law works.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Wrong.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Right, actually. People who aren't law enforcement can't just walk into a court to ask a judge to give them a warrant to take action against a criminal. That is the job of the police. And it's the job of government to decide what constitutes breaking the law. In due time, governments will, in fact, decide that using real child porn to train AI models is illegal, and enforcing that law will remain the purpose of the police. It will never be the job of private citizens to prove it to a judge, or to do anything else to the criminal except report the crime.

    Libertarian, anarchist, and sovereign citizen deulisional fantasies are not reality. The law is literally structured around not having random people enforcing the law or investigating crimes.

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