Technology

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.

You can download the models and compile them yourself, that will be as effective as the US government was at banning encryption.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.