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submitted 2 months ago by db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/news@lemmy.world

A Florida man is facing 20 counts of obscenity for allegedly creating and distributing AI-generated child pornography, highlighting the danger and ubiquity of generative AI being used for nefarious reasons.

Phillip Michael McCorkle was arrested last week while he was working at a movie theater in Vero Beach, Florida, according to TV station CBS 12 News. A crew from the TV station captured the arrest, which made for dramatic video footage due to law enforcement leading away the uniform-wearing McCorkle from the theater in handcuffs.

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[-] DmMacniel@feddit.org 93 points 2 months ago

I don't see how children were abused in this case? It's just AI imagery.

It's the same as saying that people get killed when you play first person shooter games.

Or that you commit crimes when you play GTA.

[-] timestatic@feddit.org 31 points 2 months ago

Then also every artist creating loli porn would have to be jailed for child pornography.

[-] KillerTofu@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago

How was the model trained? Probably using existing CSAM images. Those children are victims. Making derivative images of “imaginary” children doesn’t negate its exploitation of children all the way down.

So no, you are making false equivalence with your video game metaphors.

[-] fernlike3923@sh.itjust.works 55 points 2 months ago

A generative AI model doesn't require the exact thing it creates in its datasets. It most likely just combined regular nudity with a picture of a child.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 9 points 2 months ago

In that case, the images of children were still used without their permission to create the child porn in question

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 30 points 2 months ago

That's not really a nuanced take on what is going on. A bunch of images of children are studied so that the AI can learn how to draw children in general. The more children in the dataset, the less any one of them influences or resembles the output.

Ironically, you might have to train an AI specifically on CSAM in order for it to identify the kinds of images it should not produce.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago

Why does it need to be “ nuanced” to be valid or correct?

[-] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 31 points 2 months ago

Because the world we live in is complex, and rejecting complexity for a simple view of the world is dangerous.

See You Can’t Get Snakes from Chicken Eggs from the Alt-Right Playbook.

(Note I’m not accusing you of being alt-right. I’m saying we cannot ignore nuance in the world because the world is nuanced.)

[-] finley@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

We’re not talking about snakes or chicken eggs, but thanks for the strawman

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[-] CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world 7 points 2 months ago

Good luck convincing the AI advocates of this. They have already decided that all imagery everywhere is theirs to use however they like.

[-] fernlike3923@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

That's a whole other thing than the AI model being trained on CSAM. I'm currently neutral on this topic so I'd recommend you replying to the main thread.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago
[-] fernlike3923@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's not CSAM in the training dataset, it's just pictures of children/people that are already publicly available. This goes on to the copyright side of things of AI instead of illegal training material.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It’s images of children used to make CSAM. No matter of your mental gymnastics can change that, nor the fact that those children’s consent was not obtained.

Why are you trying so hard to rationalize the creation of CSAM? Do you actually believe there is a context in which CSAM is OK? Are you that sick and perverted?

Because it really sounds like that’s what you’re trying to say, using copyright law as an excuse.

[-] nomous@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago

It's every time with you people, you can't have a discussion without accusing someone of being a pedo. If that's your go-to that says a lot about how weak your argument is or what your motivations are.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

It’s hard to believe someone is not a pedo when they advocate so strongly for child porn

[-] desktop_user 7 points 2 months ago

its hard to argue with someone who believes the use of legal data to create more data is ever illegal.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

Child porn isn’t legal

[-] fernlike3923@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 months ago

I am not trying to rationalize it, I literally just said I was neutral.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

How are you neutral about child porn? The vast majority of everyone on this planet is very much against it.

[-] fernlike3923@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago

I'm not neutral about child porn, I'm very much against it, stop trying to put words in my mouth. I'm talking about this kind of use of AI could be in the very same category of loli imagery, since these are not real child sexual abuse material.

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[-] DmMacniel@feddit.org 28 points 2 months ago

Can you or anyone verify that the model was trained on CSAM?

Besides a LLM doesn't need to have explicit content to derive from to create a naked child.

[-] KillerTofu@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

You’re defending the generation of CSAM pretty hard here in some vaguely “but no child we know of” being involved as a defense.

[-] DmMacniel@feddit.org 14 points 2 months ago

I just hope that the Models aren't trained on CSAM. Making generating stuff they can fap on ""ethical reasonable"" as no children would be involved. And I hope that those who have those tendancies can be helped one way or another that doesn't involve chemical castration or incarceration.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

While i wouldn't put it past Meta&Co. to explicitly seek out CSAM to train their models on, I don't think that is how this stuff works.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

But the AI companies insist the outputs of these models aren't derivative works in any other circumstances!

[-] Samvega 15 points 2 months ago

It's just AI imagery.

Fantasising about sexual contact with children indicates that this person might groom children for real, because they have a sexual interest in doing so. As someone who was sexually assaulted as a child, it's really not something that needs to happen.

[-] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 20 points 2 months ago

Seems like then fantasizing about shooting people or carjacking or such indcates that person might do that activity for real to. There are a lot of car jackings nowadays and you know gta is real popular. mmmm. /s but seriously im not sure your first statement has merit. Especially when you look at where to draw the line. anime. manga. oil paintings. books. thoughts in ones head.

[-] CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world 3 points 2 months ago

If you're asking whether anime, manga, oil paintings, and books glorifying the sexualization of children should also be banned, well, yes.

This is not comparable to glorifying violence, because real children are victimized in order to create some of these images, and the fact that it's impossible to tell makes it even more imperative that all such imagery is banned, because the existence of fakes makes it even harder to identify real victims.

It's like you know there's an armed bomb on a street, but somebody else filled the street with fake bombs, because they get off on it or whatever. Maybe you'd say making fake bombs shouldn't be illegal because they can't harm anyone. But now suddenly they have made the job of law enforcement exponentially more difficult.

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[-] TallonMetroid@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

Well, the image generator had to be trained on something first in order to spit out child porn. While it may be that the training set was solely drawn/rendered images, we don't know that, and even if the output were in that style, it might very well be photorealistic images generated from real child porn and run through a filter.

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 48 points 2 months ago

An AI that is trained on children and nude adults can infer what a nude child looks like without ever being trained specifically with those images.

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[-] ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee 43 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

How many corn dogs do you think were in the training data?

[-] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

Wild corn dogs are an outright plague where I live. When I was younger, me and my buddies would lay snares to catch to corn dogs. When we caught one, we'd roast it over a fire to make popcorn. Corn dog cutlets served with popcorn from the same corn dog is popular meal, especially among the less fortunate. Even though some of the affluent consider it the equivalent to eating rat meat. When me pa got me first rifle when I turned 14, I spent a few days just shooting corn dogs.

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[-] lunarul@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

we don't know that

might

Unless you're operating under "guilty until proven innocent", those are not reasons to accuse someone.

[-] CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Not a great comparison, because unlike withh violent games or movies, you can't say that there is no danger to anyone in allowing these images to be created or distributed. If they are indistinguishable from the real thing, it then becomes impossible to identify actual human victims.

There's also a strong argument that the availability of imagery like this only encourages behavioral escalation in people who suffer from the affliction of being a sick fucking pervert pedophile. It's not methadone for them, as some would argue. It's just fueling their addiction, not replacing it.

[-] leraje 5 points 2 months ago

The difference is intent. When you're playing a FPS, the intent is to play a game. When you play GTA the intent is to play a game.

The intent with AI generated CSAM is to watch kids being abused.

[-] datavoid@lemmy.ml 27 points 2 months ago

Whose to say there aren't people playing games to watch people die?

[-] leraje 4 points 2 months ago

There may well be the odd weirdo playing Call of Duty to watch people die.

But everyone who watches CSAM is watching it to watch kids being abused.

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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
363 points (100.0% liked)

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