A new report warns that the proliferation of child sexual abuse images on the internet could become much worse if something is not done to put controls on artificial intelligence tools that generate deepfake photos.
I see where you’re coming from but that’s a technical issue that will probably be solved in time.
You cannot create information from nothing.
So having a safe and harmless outlet might help.
Psychologists/Psychiatrists are still on the fence on that one, I wouldn’t be surprised if it depends on the person. And yes the external harm produced by AI images is definitely lower than that produced from actual CSAM, doubly so newly produced CSAM, but that doesn’t mean that therapy, even in its current early stages, couldn’t do even better.
Differently put: We may be again falling into the trap of trying to find technological solutions to societal problems (well, this is /c/technology…). Which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t care at all about models trained on CSAM, but that’s addressing symptoms, not causes. Ultimately addressing root causes is more important: The vast majority of paedophiles are not exclusive paedophiles, often they’re not even really attracted to kids at all beyond having developed a fetish, they’re rapists focussing on the most vulnerable, often due to having been victims of sexual abuse themselves.
Arguably that’s exactly what generative AIs do. Which is not what you meant, but yeah. I was going more for like “given current progress and advancements in how we curate datasets and whatnot, there is no reason to believe that we won’t have 100% undistinguishable AI-generated pictures eventually”.
We already know that you don’t need to have stuff in the training dataset to have it show up meaningfully in the output.
Psychologists/Psychiatrists are still on the fence on that one, I wouldn’t be surprised if it depends on the person. And yes the external harm produced by AI images is definitely lower than that produced from actual CSAM, doubly so newly produced CSAM, but that doesn’t mean that therapy, even in its current early stages, couldn’t do even better.
100% agree there. What I would like to see is more research, but that’s currently kinda impossible with CSAM being as criminalized as it is. Which is kinda sad.
Therapy seems to work on most help-seeking people (and there are studies proving that), so this should be a last ditch effort.
The rest of your post I don’t agree with. It isn’t really (definitely not exclusively) a societal problem - some people’s brains are simply wired in a way that’s just bad and there isn’t much you can do with it, and either these people suffer by living with it, or they cause harm to others because of it. Both is bad.
The vast majority of paedophiles are not exclusive paedophiles, often they’re not even really attracted to kids at all beyond having developed a fetish, they’re rapists focussing on the most vulnerable, often due to having been victims of sexual abuse themselves.
Do you have any statistics proving this? It’s exactly the bias that already makes non-acting pedophiles unlikely to seek help. Obviously these kinds of people are the ones you hear most about, but I wouldn’t be so sure that they’re the majority (even if they’re most of the problem).
My point is that if you take it as people who need help and actually manage to provide it, you should be able to get the number of abuse down overall except for the people who truly can’t be helped. And it really doesn’t matter much how you provide that help, even if it’s morally questionable like using artificially generated CSAM.
All my knowledge about this stuff goes back to what 2010, in the wake of this shit. I’m quite sure it’s actual medical statistics though don’t ask me where to find those 13 years down the line.
My point is that if you take it as people who need help and actually manage to provide it
We do actually have a programme specifically for this in Germany. Attempting to make run off the mill psychologists provide that kind of therapy isn’t viable: The general issue is utter lack of rapport when your therapist can’t decide whether they’d like to barf or strangle you.
You cannot create information from nothing.
Psychologists/Psychiatrists are still on the fence on that one, I wouldn’t be surprised if it depends on the person. And yes the external harm produced by AI images is definitely lower than that produced from actual CSAM, doubly so newly produced CSAM, but that doesn’t mean that therapy, even in its current early stages, couldn’t do even better.
Differently put: We may be again falling into the trap of trying to find technological solutions to societal problems (well, this is /c/technology…). Which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t care at all about models trained on CSAM, but that’s addressing symptoms, not causes. Ultimately addressing root causes is more important: The vast majority of paedophiles are not exclusive paedophiles, often they’re not even really attracted to kids at all beyond having developed a fetish, they’re rapists focussing on the most vulnerable, often due to having been victims of sexual abuse themselves.
Arguably that’s exactly what generative AIs do. Which is not what you meant, but yeah. I was going more for like “given current progress and advancements in how we curate datasets and whatnot, there is no reason to believe that we won’t have 100% undistinguishable AI-generated pictures eventually”.
We already know that you don’t need to have stuff in the training dataset to have it show up meaningfully in the output.
100% agree there. What I would like to see is more research, but that’s currently kinda impossible with CSAM being as criminalized as it is. Which is kinda sad.
Therapy seems to work on most help-seeking people (and there are studies proving that), so this should be a last ditch effort.
The rest of your post I don’t agree with. It isn’t really (definitely not exclusively) a societal problem - some people’s brains are simply wired in a way that’s just bad and there isn’t much you can do with it, and either these people suffer by living with it, or they cause harm to others because of it. Both is bad.
Do you have any statistics proving this? It’s exactly the bias that already makes non-acting pedophiles unlikely to seek help. Obviously these kinds of people are the ones you hear most about, but I wouldn’t be so sure that they’re the majority (even if they’re most of the problem).
My point is that if you take it as people who need help and actually manage to provide it, you should be able to get the number of abuse down overall except for the people who truly can’t be helped. And it really doesn’t matter much how you provide that help, even if it’s morally questionable like using artificially generated CSAM.
All my knowledge about this stuff goes back to what 2010, in the wake of this shit. I’m quite sure it’s actual medical statistics though don’t ask me where to find those 13 years down the line.
We do actually have a programme specifically for this in Germany. Attempting to make run off the mill psychologists provide that kind of therapy isn’t viable: The general issue is utter lack of rapport when your therapist can’t decide whether they’d like to barf or strangle you.