25 arrested in global hit against AI-generated child sexual abuse material

Even in cases when the content is fully artificial and there is no real victim depicted, such as Operation Cumberland, AI-generated CSAM still contributes to the objectification and sexualisation of children.

I get how fucking creepy and downright sickening this all feels, but I'm genuinely surprised that it's illegal or criminal if there's no actual children involved.

It mentions sexual extortion and that's definitely something that should be illegal, same for spreading AI generated explicit stuff about real people without their concent, involving children or adults, but idk about the case mentioned here.

It's certainly creepy and disgusting

It also seems like we're half a step away from thought police regulating any thought or expression a person has that those in power do not like
Exactly. If there's no victim, there's no crime.
It would depend on the country. In the UK even drawn depictions are illegal. I assume it has to at least be realistic and stick figures don't count.
- It sounds like a very iffy thing to police. Since drawn stuff doesn't have actual age, how do you determine it? Looks? Wouldn't be great.

On one hand I don't think this kind of thing can be consequence free (from a practical standpoint). On the other hand... how old were the subjects? You can't look at a person to determine their age and someone that looks like a child but is actually adult wouldn't be charged as a child pornographer. The whole reason age limits are set is to give reasonable assurance the subject is not being exploited or otherwise harmed by the act.

This is a massive grey area and I just hope sentences are proportional to the crime. I could live with this kind of thing being classified as a misdemeanor provided the creator didn't use underage subjects to train or influence the output.

I think it's pretty stupid. Borders on Thought Crime kind of stuff.

I'd rather see that kind of enforcement and effort go towards actually finding people who are harming children.
- This is also my take: any person can set up an image generator and churn any content they want. Focus should be on actual people being trafficed and abused.
- I've read it being defined as "victimless crime"; not that I condone it, but thinking about the energy and resources spent for such a large operation... about drawn porn? Cmon.
- There’s a few in the White House.
- Ehhhhh...
  
  It also borders on real CSAM
I could live with this kind of thing being classified as a misdemeanor provided the creator didn’t use underage subjects to train or influence the output.

So could I, but that doesn't make it just. It should only be a crime if someone is actually harmed, or intended to be harmed.

Creating a work about a fictitious individual shouldn't be illegal, regardless of how distasteful the work is.
It's not a gray area at all. There's an EU directive on the matter. If an image appears to depict someone under the age of 18 then it's child porn. It doesn't matter if any minor was exploited. That's simply not what these laws are about.

Bear in mind, there are many countries where consenting adults are prosecuted for having sex the wrong way. It's not so long ago that this was also the case in Europe, and a lot of people explicitly want that back. On the other hand, beating children has a lot of fans in the same demographic. Some people want to actually protect children, but a whole lot of people simply want to prosecute sexual minorities, and the difference shows.

17 year-olds who exchange nude selfies engage in child porn. I know there have been convictions in the US; not sure about Europe. I know that teachers have been prosecuted when minors sought help when their selfies were being passed around in school, because they sent the images in question to the teacher, and that's possession. In Germany, the majority of suspects in child porn cases are minors. Valuable life lesson for them.

Anyway, what I'm saying is: We need harsher laws and more surveillance to deal with this epidemic of child porn. Only a creep would defend child porn and I am not a creep.
- There's not an epidemic of child porn.
  
  There's an epidemic of governments wanting greater surveillance powers over the Internet and it is framed as being used to "fight child porn".
  
  So you're going to hear about every single case and conviction until your perception is that there is an epidemic of child porn.
  
  "You can't possibly oppose these privacy destroying laws, after all you're not on the side of child porn are you?"
- Legality is not the same as morality.
- It's not a gray area at all. There's an EU directive on the matter. If an image appears to depict someone under the age of 18 then it's child porn.
  
  So a person that is 18 years old, depicted in the nude, is still a child pornographer if they don't look their age? This gives judges and prosecutors too much leeway and I could guarantee there are right-wing judges that would charge a 25yo because it could believed they were 17.
  
  In Germany, the majority of suspects in child porn cases are minors. Valuable life lesson for them.
  
  Is it though? I don't know about the penalties in Germany but in the US a 17yo that takes a nude selfie is likely to be put on a sex offender list for life and have their freedom significantly limited. I'm not against penalties, but they should be proportional to the harm. A day in court followed by a fair amount of community service should be enough of an embarrassment to deter them, not jail.
- That's a directive, it's not a regulation, and the directive calling anyone under 18 a child does not mean that everything under 18 is treated the same way in actually applicable law, which directives very much aren't. Germany, for example, splits the whole thing into under 14 and 14-18.
  
  We certainly don't arrest youth for sending each other nudes:
  
  (4) Subsection (1) no. 3, also in conjunction with subsection (5), and subsection (3) do not apply to acts by persons relating to such youth pornographic content which they have produced exclusively for their personal use with the consent of the persons depicted.
  
  ...their own nudes, that is. Not that of classmates or whatnot.

I'm afraid Europol is shooting themselves in the foot here.

What should be done is better ways to mark and identify AI-generated content, not a carpet ban and criminalization.

Let whoever happens to crave CSAM (remember: sexuality, however perverted or terrible it is, is not a choice) use the most harmless outlet - otherwise, they may just turn to the real materials, and as continuous investigations suggest, there's no shortage of supply or demand on that front. If everything is illegal, and some of that is needed anyway, it's easier to escalate, and that's dangerous.

As sickening as it may sound to us, these people often need something, or else things are quickly gonna go downhill. Give them their drawings.

You can download the models and compile them yourself, that will be as effective as the US government was at banning encryption.
- https://www.theverge.com/policy/621848/uk-killing-encryption-e2e-apple-adp-privacy
What would stop someone from creating a tool that tagged real images as AI generated?

Have at it with drawings that are easily distinguished, but if anything is photorealistic I feel like it needs to be treated as real.
- Some form of digital signatures for allowed services?
  
  Sure, it will limit the choice of where to legally generate content, but it should work.
This relies on the idea that "outlet" is not harmful. It might be encouraging even but who do you think even would ever study this to help us know here. Can you imagine the scientists who'd have to be leading studies like this - incredibly grim and difficult subject with high likelihood that no one would listen to you anyway.
- IIRC there was actually a study and pedos with access to synthetic CSAM were less likely to victimize real children.
I haven't read any of this research because, like, the only feelings I have about pedophiles are outright contempt and a small amount of pity for the whole fucking destructive evilness of it all, but I've been told having access to drawings and images and whatnot makes people more likely to act on their impulses.

And like. I don't think images of CSAM in any form, no matter how far removed they are from real people, actually contribute anything worthwhile st all yo the world, so like. I dunno.

Really couldn't give two squirts of piss of about anything that makes a pedophiles life harder. Human garbage.
- As an advocate for online and offline safety of children, I did read into the research. None of the research I've found confirm with any sort of evidence that AI-generated CSAM materials increase risks of other illicit behavior. We need more evidence, and I do recommend to exercise caution with statements, but for the time being, we can rely on the studies in other forms of illegal behaviors and the effects of their decriminalization, which paint a fairly positive picture. Generally, people will tend to opt for what is legal and more readily accessible - and we can make AI CSAM into exactly that.
  
  For now, people are criminalized for the zero-evidence-its-even-bad crime, while I tend to look quite positively on what it can bring on the table instead.
  
  Also, pedophiles are not human trash, and this line of thinking is also harmful, making more of them hide and never get adequate help from a therapist, increasing their chances of offending. Which, well, harms children.
  
  They are regular people who, involuntarily, have their sexuality warped in a way that includes children. They never chose it, they cannot do anything about it in itself, and can only figure out what to do with it going forward. You could be one, I could be one. What matters is the decisions they take based on their sexuality. The correct way is celibacy and refusion of any sources of direct harm towards children, including the consumption of real CSAM. This might be hard on many, and to aid them, we can provide fictional materials so they could let some steam off. Otherwise, many are likely to turn to real CSAM as a source of satisfaction, or even turn to actually abusing children IRL.

I totally agree with these guys being arrested. I want to get that out of the way first.

But what crime did they commit? They didn't abuse children...they are AI generated and do not exist. What they did is obviously disgusting and makes me want to punch them in the face repeatedly until it's flat, but where's the line here? If they draw pictures of non-existent children is that also a crime?

Does that open artists to the interpretation of the law when it comes to art? Can they be put in prison because they did a professional painting of a child? Like what if they did a painting of their own child in the bath or something? Sure the contents questionable but it's not exactly predatory. And if you add safeguards for these people could then not the predators just claim artistic expression?

It just seems entirely unenforceable and an entire goddamn can of worms...

I actually do not agree with them being arrested.

While I recognize the issue of identification posed in the article, I hold a strong opinion it should be tackled in another way.

AI-generated CSAM might be a powerful tool to reduce demand for the content featuring real children. If we leave it legal to watch and produce, and keep the actual materials illegal, we can make more pedophiles turn to what is less harmful and impactful - a computer-generated image that was produced with no children being harmed.

By introducing actions against AI-generated materials, they make such materials as illegal as the real thing, and there's one less reason for an interested party not to go to a CSAM site and watch actual children getting abused, perpetuating the cycle and leading to more real-world victims.
- It's strange to me that it is referred to as CSAM. No people are involved so no one is a being sexually assaulted. It's creepy but calling it that implies a drawing is a person to me.
- Nah the argument that this could grow "pedophile culture" and even encourage real activities is really not that far fetched and could be even true. Without very convincing studies do you take a chance where real kids could soon suffer? And I mean the studies would have to be really convincing.
Exactly, which is why I'm against your first line, I don't want them arrested specifically because of artistic expression. I think they're absolutely disgusting and should stop, but they're not harming anyone so they shouldn't go to jail.

In my opinion, you should only go to jail if there's an actual victim. Who exactly is the victim here?
It obviously depends on where they live and/or committed the crimes. But most countries have broad laws against anything, real or fake, that depicts CSAM.

It both because as technology gets better it would be easy for offenders to claims anything they’ve been caught with is AI created.

It’s also because there’s a belief that AI generated CSAM encourages real child abuse.

I shan’t say whether it does - I tend to believe so but haven’t seen data to prove me right or wrong.

Also, at the end, I think it’s simply an ethical position.
First off I’ll say this topic is very nuanced. And as sick as any child porn is I completely agree. This, in my gut, feels like a weird slippery slope that will somehow get used against any AI generated images or possibly any AI generated content. It makes me feel like those “online child protection” bills that seem on the surface like not terrible ideas, but when you start thinking about them in detail are horrific dystopian ideas.

Not going to read the article, but I will say that I understand making hyper-realistic fictional CP illegal, because it would make limiting actual CP impossible.

As long as it’s clearly fictional though, let people get off to whatever imaginary stuff they want to. We might find it disgusting, but there are plenty of sexual genres that most people would find disgusting b yet shouldn’t be illegal.

The only way to generate something like that is to teach it something like that from real images.
- I don’t think this is actually true. Pretty sure if you feed it naked adults and clothed children it can figure out the rest.
- only way
  
  That's just not true.
  
  That said, there's a decent chance that existing models use real images, and that is what we should be fighting against. The user of a model has plausible deniability because there's a good chance they don't understand how they work, but the creators of the model should absolutely know where they're getting the source data from.
  
  Prove that the models use illegal material and go after the model creators for that, because that's an actual crime. Don't go after people using the models who are providing alternatives to abusive material.

If an underage AI character, is portrayed in say a movie or games, is that wrong? Seems like a very slippery slope.

There have been controversies about that sort of thing.

I know the Oscar-winning movie The Tin Drum as an example. The book by Günter Grass is a very serious, highly celebrated piece of German post-war literature. It takes place around WW2. The protagonist has the mind of an adult in the body of a child. I guess the idea is that he is the other way around from most people?

The movie was banned in Ontario and Oklahoma, for a time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Drum_(film)#Censorship

With European societies shifting right, I doubt such a movie could be made today, but we aren't at a point where it would be outright illegal.
- Good to have data points as reference points to at least guide the discussion.

Followed swiftly by operation jizzberworld