If you know how AI works though, you can argue that he is in fact wrong. AI doesn’t actually generate content out of the blue. It is an algorithm trained on existing content whether it’s written, video, photos, etc. So, that means that any of the content generated will be based off real individuals. With that in mind, it should be illegal by its own ruling.
It doesn't need actual pictures in its training data to generate something like this. Simply having clothed pictures of kids and naked pictures of adults is enough to allow it to extrapolate into csam territory. Honestly that's the whole point of this sort of AI over earlier tech. Also that doesn't even include the fact that simply having a picture of a naked kid doesn't make it csam. Medical photos and family photos would be completely legal examples and then could be twisted by the AI into a horrific output despite nothing in its training data being illegal.
Now given how the training data was actually acquired I don't doubt that there actually was illegal content in it simply because these companies didn't actually care enough to be careful about what they were gathering. If we want to screw them for the wall for that I'm all for it.
I’m not even making any claims regarding the legality of the inputs. Whether the inputs are legal or not doesn’t change the fact that the output is CSAM and is based on images of real people - legal or not.
I think it's important from a rights perspective to be clear about what we're banning. Whatever we come up with here will be fully utilized to target vulnerable groups like LGBT.
If the goal is to ban realistic looking images because they confuse and interfere with actual child abuse that has a clear limit and clear impact that's definable and something that could be decided on as a reasonable limit of free speech.
Likewise I think it's already illegal to create explicit images in another real person's likeness, minor or adult. That's an attack on someone's reputation and character and something easily achievable without AI. Expanding or making those laws more universal is again totally justified.
Making any non-realistic, non-real person fictional image illegal just because it's gross and horrific is a really bad can of worms to open, whether its AI created or not. There's no limit to that other than what people find as gross and that's a wildly variable thing that will 100% be used to simply target people they don't like.
86
u/[deleted] 2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment