A sex offender convicted of making more than 1,000 indecent images of children has been banned from using any “AI creating tools” for the next five years in the first known case of its kind.
Anthony Dover, 48, was ordered by a UK court “not to use, visit or access” artificial intelligence generation tools without the prior permission of police as a condition of a sexual harm prevention order imposed in February.
The ban prohibits him from using tools such as text-to-image generators, which can make lifelike pictures based on a written command, and “nudifying” websites used to make explicit “deepfakes”.
Dover, who was given a community order and £200 fine, has also been explicitly ordered not to use Stable Diffusion software, which has reportedly been exploited by paedophiles to create hyper-realistic child sexual abuse material, according to records from a sentencing hearing at Poole magistrates court.
UK legislators have a long history of taking actions not informed by science or reason but rather the popular, often hysteric, opinion.
This case is yet another attempt at tightening screws where they shouldn’t be.
AI imagery was produced by Stable Diffusion, the model that, for all we know, did not take real CSAM as inputs and caused no harm to actual children. At the same time, such images are important at discouraging the consumption of real CSAM, with very real children being traumatized.
By banning AI imagery production using safe models, legislators leave no legal way for pedophiles to get something by the harmless means, directing many to the harmful ways as equally illegal, while also prosecuting those who did no harm.
counter point:
if you have a folder of AI generated CP and put in a couple of pictures of actual CP it’s going to muddle the case as the offender could claim all of them are simply AI generated. Real harm could go unnoticed if those two were to be treated differently.
Additionally, not every offender will stop at AI generated images, and if their curiosity becomes enough they could go on to want to experience “the real thing”.
I think the solution here is not banning AI materials outright but to make them identifiable - even by means of digital signatures if you want.
For example, Stable Diffusion could insert particular piece of metadata into the picture containing the signature and proving the image is AI-generated, etc.
Without AI materials, said curiosity may lead people straight to the “real thing”, and every darknet or even Telegram dweller will tell you it’s frighteningly easy to find it even if you never intended to. With AI materials, people can have a chance to stop there.
meta data is trivially easy to strip off a picture, you don’t even need to bother using tools for it - just take a screenshot and delete the original
You do realize that slippery slope argument is what’s used when it comes to banning anything else, right?
“Can’t legalize marijuana or people will start wanting to do meth” for example.
I don’t believe those two are comparable.
Weed and meth are rather different in how they affect people.
AI images are often used as a way to imitate reality
It’s not a matter of entitlement but of a real world harm. And generated imagery involving imaginary children does not constitude child sexual abuse.
I’d gladly give pedophiles generated imagery if that were to stop them from lurking in search of real CSAM, supporting the industry that creates a very tangible harm - actual child abuse.
And my life has nothing to do with either, so don’t make it personal. I only share my opinion on what we should really do to protect children, not to protect our deeply rooted views.
Using csam in training data causes harm
Try to take your emotion from the discussion. There is finally a way for people with an illness (in this case pedophilia) to “satisfy” urges without causing harm to children. They need professional help which cannot be gained easily in the UK due to a certain government removing funds.
This isn’t a give pedos stuff celebration, it’s a discussion that needs to happen and if you’re not mature enough to not get emotional, don’t partake in the conversation.
My understanding is that CSAM doesn’t satisfy anything. Iirc research on the subject suggests that it causes most pedophiles to go out and look for the real thing.
Which scans. How many people watch normal.porn and think: “well, that’s good enough” and just stop pursuing a real partner?
There’s no csam because there’s no child. Critical thinking is hard I know.
Except when the data is trained on csam
I thought pedophiles looking at CSAM were more likely to attack a child, not less. They are actively fantasizing about it, and that can escalate.
I am basing this belief on what I remember of discussions regarding that “ask a rapist” reddit megathread. Apparently psychologists thought that was horrifying.
The bias with this approach is that it highlights those who did offend, while telling us nothing of those who didn’t. This is often repeated throughout research as well.
It’s very likely that a lot of child abusers did watch CSAM (after all, if you see no issue in child abuse, there’s no issue for you in the creation of such imagery), but how many CSAM viewers end up being abusers and is there an elevated risk? That is the question.
I guess if we’d make an “ask a pedophile” thread instead of “ask a rapist”, we could get some insights. Pedophiles, catch the idea!
But then we cannot say that in either direction. We simply don’t know if they are more or less likely to attack a child without data about it.
I don’t have any of these Tendencies but I like to think that if I did I would chemically remove my sex drive
That’s up to everyone. Besides, most pedophiles do have sexual interest towards adults as well, and current means reduce that drive too.
Chemical castration in this context increases misery and makes building healthy adult relationships harder. Most pedophiles do not opt for that, for all I know.
Current therapeutic methods do include suppressing sex drive in case the client struggles with impulse control. Otherwise, it is not offered, but can be given on request.
