A South Korean man has been sentenced to jail for using artificial intelligence to generate exploitative images of children, the first case of its kind in the country as courts around the world encounter the use of new technologies in creating abusive sexual content.
Off the bat, I wholly disagree with the idea that this should have been legal. That filth, even if AI generated, should be illegal for a multitude of reasons, one of them being that it allows those… urges to be practiced. I’m not one for the slippery slope fallacy but in situations where it could escalate to real child abuse, there should be zero tolerance and indulgence. If it’s a mental illness, they don’t need to fulfill that urge.
That said, I think the people suggesting otherwise here are just looking at it from a perspective of numbers and nothing else, with little consideration of the significant downsides. The stance also ignores that offenders are likely in it for the taboo more than actual interest in kids— it sure seems like Epstein’s friends were mostly doing it because they could, and it was a new level of depravity to try. If you ignore all of these, AI generated filth could indeed reduce actual child abuse. That’s a good thing and theoretically comes with no additional suffering, right?
I see this as naivety. Rude to imply about others here but better than CSAM apologism. It’s about the best I can think of, and I try to assume the best in people these days.
Also to make clear why I think the slippery slope is valid here, making some form of that awful “interest” legal dramatically lowers the bar of entry. And unlike violent films that are accused of increasing violence, that filth will never have wider societal acceptance, so a legal but taboo on-ramp is more likely to lead to illegal and taboo viewing, then perhaps onto the real thing. Society should never be willing to risk that by indulging in their mental illness.
Off the bat, I wholly disagree with the idea that this should have been legal. That filth, even if AI generated, should be illegal for a multitude of reasons, one of them being that it allows those… urges to be practiced. I’m not one for the slippery slope fallacy but in situations where it could escalate to real child abuse, there should be zero tolerance and indulgence. If it’s a mental illness, they don’t need to fulfill that urge.
That said, I think the people suggesting otherwise here are just looking at it from a perspective of numbers and nothing else, with little consideration of the significant downsides. The stance also ignores that offenders are likely in it for the taboo more than actual interest in kids— it sure seems like Epstein’s friends were mostly doing it because they could, and it was a new level of depravity to try. If you ignore all of these, AI generated filth could indeed reduce actual child abuse. That’s a good thing and theoretically comes with no additional suffering, right?
I see this as naivety. Rude to imply about others here but better than CSAM apologism. It’s about the best I can think of, and I try to assume the best in people these days.
Also to make clear why I think the slippery slope is valid here, making some form of that awful “interest” legal dramatically lowers the bar of entry. And unlike violent films that are accused of increasing violence, that filth will never have wider societal acceptance, so a legal but taboo on-ramp is more likely to lead to illegal and taboo viewing, then perhaps onto the real thing. Society should never be willing to risk that by indulging in their mental illness.