FBI Arrests Man For Generating AI Child Sexual Abuse Imagery
He allegedly used Stable Diffusion, a text-to-image generative AI model, to create “thousands of realistic images of prepubescent minors,” prosecutors said.
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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?
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
And doesn't the AI learn from real images?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Source? From what I’ve heard, recent studies are showing the opposite.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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...
but is not relevant to the topic at hand.
The belief that indulging in AI created child porn relieves the sexual deviant behaviour of being attracted to actual minors utilizes the cathartic theory. The cathartic theory is typically understood to relate to an array of emotions, not just anger. "Further, the catharsis hypothesis maintains that aggressive or sexual urges are relieved by "releasing" aggressive or sexual energy, usually through action or fantasy. "
follows the same patterns as aggression. that's a pretty big claim! i'd like to see a source that supports that claim.
That's not a claim I make, it's a claim that cathartic theory states. As I said the cathartic hypothesis is a byproduct of Freudian psychology, which has largely been debunked.
Your issue is with the theory in and of itself, which my claim is already stating to be problematic.
but is also entirely off-topic...
No, you are just conflating colloquial understanding of catharsis with the psychological theory.
and your source measured the effects of one single area that cathartic theory is supposed to apply to, not all of them.
your source does in no way support the claim that the observed effects apply to anything other than aggressive behavior.
i understand that the theory supposedly applies to other areas as well, but as you so helpfully pointed out: the theory doesn't seem to hold up.
so either A: the theory is wrong, and so the association between aggression and sexuality needs to be called into question also;
or B: the theory isn't wrong after all.
you are now claiming that the theory is wrong, but at the same time, the theory is totally correct! (when it's convenient to you, that is)
so which is it now? is the theory correct? then your source must be wrong irrelevant.
or is the theory wrong? then the claim of a link between sexuality and aggression is also without support, until you provide a source for that claim.
you can't have it both ways, but you're sure trying to.
understand that the theory supposedly applies to other areas as well, but as you so helpfully pointed out: the theory doesn't seem to hold up.
My original claim was that cathartic theory in and of itself is not founded on evidence based research.
but at the same time, the theory is totally correct! (when it's convenient to you, that is)
When did I claim it was ever correct?
I think you are misconstruing my original claim with the claims made by the cathartic theory itself.
I don't claim that cathartic theory is beneficial in any way, you are the one claiming that Cathartic theory is correct for sexual aggression, but not for violence.
Do you have a source that claims cathartic theory is beneficial for satiation deviant sexual impulses?
then the claim of a link between sexuality and aggression is also without support, until you provide a source for that claim.
You are wanting me to provide an evidence based claim between the two when I've already said the overarching theory is not based on evidence?
The primary principle to establish is the theory of cathartic relief, not wether it works for one emotion or the other. You have not provided any evidence to support that claim, I have provided evidence that disputes it.
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.
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.....
You're still using 5,000 year old Armenian shoes?
Of course not. Stop being reductive.
Lol, you were the one who first dismissed evidence because it was 20 years old.....
The point is you can reduce anything to its origin. That does not mean it's still the same thing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m in favor of specific legislation criminalizing drawn CSAM. It’s definitely less severe than photographic CSAM, and it’s definitely harmful.
networking between abusers absolutely emboldens them and results in more abuse.
Is this proven or a common sense claim you’re making?
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.
So... its just a claim they're making and you're hoping it has actual backing.
I'm not hoping anything, haha wtf? The comment above me asked if it was a proven statement or common sense and I said I wouldn't be surprised if it's both. I felt confident that if I googled it, there would more than likely be studies backing up a common sense statement like that, as I've read in the past how sending innocent people or people who committed minor misdemeanors to prison has influenced them negatively to commit crimes they might not have otherwise.
And look at that, there are academic articles that do back it up:
Negative Social Environment
Who we’re around can influence who we are. Just being in a high-crime neighborhood can increase our chances of turning to crime ourselves.4 But being in the presence of criminals is not the only way our environment can affect our behaviors. Research reveals that simply living in poverty increases our likelihood of being incarcerated. When we’re having trouble making ends meet, we’re under intense stress and more likely to resort to crime.
https://www.law.ac.uk/resources/blog/is-prison-effective/
Time in prison can actually make someone more likely to commit crime — by further exposing them to all sorts of criminal elements.
Etc, etc.
Turns out that your dominant social group and environment influences your behavior, what a shocking statement.
But you didn't say you had proof with your comment, you said it was probable. Basically saying its common sense that its proven.
Why are you getting aggressive about actually having to provide proof about something when saying its obvious?
Also, that seems to imply that locking up people for AI offenses would then encourage truly reprehensible behavior by linking them with those who already engage in it.
Almost like lumping people together as one big group, instead of having levels of grey area, means people are more likely to just go all in instead of sticking to something more morally defensible.
Because it's a casual discussion, I think it's obnoxious when people constantly demand sources to be cited in online comments section when they could easily look it up themselves. This isn't some academic or formal setting.
And I disagree, only the second source mentioned prisons explicitly. The first source mentions social environments as well. So it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Additionally, even if you consider the second source, that source mentions punishment reforms to prevent that undesirable side effect from occuring.
I find it ironic that you criticized me for not citing sources and then didn't read the sources. But, whatever. Typical social media comments section moment.
I think it's obnoxious when people constantly demand sources to be cited in online comments section when they could easily look it up themselves.
People request sources because people state their opinions as fact. If that’s how it’s presented then asking for a source is ok. Its either ask for a source or completely dismiss the comment.
Again, in casual conversation where no one was really debating, it's obnoxious. When you're talking to friends in real life and they say something, do you request sources from them? No, because it'd be rude and annoying. If you were debating them in earnest and you both disagreed on something, sure, that would be expected.
But that wasn't the case here, the initial statement was common sense: If pedophiles are allowed to meet up and trade AI generated child sex abuse material, would that cause some of them to be more likely to commit crimes against real kids? And I think the answer is pretty obvious. The more you hang around people who agree with you, the more an echo chamber is cultivated. It's like an alcoholic going into a bar without anyone there to support them in staying sober.
Anyway, it's your opinion to think asking for sources from strangers in casual conversation is okay, and it's mine to say it can be annoying in a lot of circumstances. We all have the Internet at our fingertips, look it up in the future if you're unsure of someone's assertion.
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.
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.
I wonder if religiosity is correlated.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I didn't know that, my bad.
Fair but depressing, it seems like it barely registered in the news cycle.
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.
Just a point of clarity, an AI model capable of generating csam doesn't necessarily have to be trained on csam.
That honestly brings up more questions than it answers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
so many people still think it should be illegal
It is illegal. https://www.thefederalcriminalattorneys.com/possession-of-lolicon
I wasn’t arguing about current laws. I was simply arguing about public perception, and whether the average person believes it should be illegal. There’s a difference between legality and ethicality. Something unethical can be legal, and something illegal can be ethical.
Weed is illegal, but public perception says it shouldn’t be.
Why are you assuming everyone lives in the US? Your article even admits that it is legal elsewhere (Japan).
This is a better one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_fictional_pornography_depicting_minors
Everybody is American. They just don't know it yet.
Gospel of the Jesus
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.
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.
Everything is 99% grey area. If someone tells you something is completely black and white you should be suspicious of their motives.
You know whats better? Having none of this shit
Did you just fix menal health?
Yeah as I also said.
Yeah would be nice. Unfortunelately it isn't so and it's never going to. Chasing after people generating distasteful AI pictures is not making the world a better place.
Better for whom and why?
Apparently he sent some to an actual minor.
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.
Better only means less worse in this case, I guess
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.
Yes, but the perp showed the images to a minor.
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.
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
That's not how these addictive disorders works.. they're never satisfied and always need more.
Two things:
Alternative perspective is to think that does watching normal porn make heterosexual men more likely to rape women? If not then why would it be different in this case?
The vast majority of pedophiles never offend. Most people in jail for child abuse are just plain old rapists with no special interest towards minors, they're just an easy target. Pedophilia just describes what they're attracted to. It's not a synonym to child rapist. It usually needs to coinside with psychopathy to create the monster that most people think about when hearing that word.
That's a bit of a difference in comparison.
A better comparison would be "does watching common heterosexual porn make common heterosexual men more interested in performing common heterosexual sexual acts?" or "does viewing pornography long term satiate a mans sex drive?” or "does consumption of nonconsensual pornography correlate to an increase in nonconsensual sex acts?"
Comparing "viewing child sexual content might lead it engaging in sexual acts with children" to "viewing sexual activity with women might lead to rape" is disingenuous and apples to oranges.
https://wchh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tre.791
a review of 19 studies published between 2013 and 2018 found an association between online porn use and earlier sexual debut, engaging with occasional and/or multiple partners, emulating risky sexual behaviours, assimilating distorted gender roles, dysfunctional body perception, aggression, anxiety, depression, and compulsive porn use.24 Another study has shown that compulsive use of sexually explicit internet material by adolescent boys is more likely in those with lower self-esteem, depressive feeling and excessive sexual interest.1
some porn use in adult men may have a positive impact by increasing libido and desire for a real-life partner, relieving sexual boredom, and improving sexual satisfaction by providing inspiration for real sex.7
As for child porn, it's not a given that there's no relationship between consumption and abusing children. There are studies that indicate both outcomes, and are made much more complicated by one of both activities being extremely illegal and socially stigmatized making accurate tracking difficult.
It's difficult to justify the notion that "most pedophiles never offend" when it can be difficult to identify both pedophiles and abuse.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21088873/ for example. It looks at people arrested for possession of child pornography. Within six years, 6% were charged with a child contact crime. Likewise, you can find research with a differing conclusion
Point being, you can't just hand wave the potential for a link away on the grounds that porn doesn't cause rape amongst typical heterosexual men. There's too many factors making the statistics difficult to gather.
I would love to see research data pointing either way re #1, although it would be incredibly difficult to do so ethically, verging on impossible. For #2, people have extracted originals or near-originals of inputs to the algorithms. AI generated stuff - plagiarism machine generated stuff, runs the risk of effectively revictimizing people who were already abused to get said inputs.
It's an ugly situation all around, and unfortunately I don't know that much can be done about it beyond not demonizing people who have such drives, who have not offended, so that seeking therapy for the condition doesn't screw them over. Ensuring that people are damned if they do and damned if they don't seems to pretty reliably produce worse outcomes.
The generated stuff is as illegal as the real stuff. https://www.thefederalcriminalattorneys.com/possession-of-lolicon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003