posted in Technology
US judge ruled AI-generated child sexual abuse material is protected by First Amendment.
cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1368970/judge-ruled-ai-generated-child-sex-abuse-material-is-protected-by-first-amendment
reason.com/volokh/2026/08/27/home-possession-of-ai-generated-porn-depicting-fake-children-remains-constitutionally-protected-seventh-circuit-rules/Replying to @beep@piefed.world
If you read the article, this is a very specific legal question. And honestly, it’s too gross to contemplate, and having a strong opinion about this on the internet is rightly suspicious.
The good news is the criminal in this case didn’t just posess CSAM, and no matter how this shakes out, they going to jail.
Replying to @yesman@lemmy.world
I heard there is a theory from therapists that being able to create that content can help quell urges, and so we should allow it if it protects real kids, vile as it is. However others argue it could cause it cause more to cause harm.
Either way, the decision is well above my ability to decide, and while I would hope actual professionals would have a say, unfortunately it’s going to be a political thing. Pandoras box is wide open though.
Replying to @scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
This isn’t someone drawing CP though. It’s AI-generated CP, which means the model had to be actually trained on CP. You might argue that there are already models trained on CP, and the chicken is already in the nugget, but legalising it creates financial incentive to train on CP because then you can sell your model to paedophiles.
Replying to @communism@lemmy.ml
That’s not how AI works. The people claiming that AI models have to be trained on CP to make CP have a fundamental misunderstanding of how image generation models work.
If I ask an AI model to make an image of a sexy air fryer fucking a sexy, anthropomorphic, ear of corn, it will produce said image. I promise it was not trained on sexy images of air fryers fucking sexy anthropomorphic ears of corn.
That’s what makes AI so dangerous and difficult to regulate. We are not ready for this technology to be in the hands of everyone.
Replying to @I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
They’re not wrong about the ruling incentivising CP though. I’m sure we’ll see shitloads of sites outright advertising it now
Replying to @I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
You’re wrong. Literally from the article
AI-generated CSAM may also present other challenges not raised by the government in this appeal. For example, researchers have found that “a major dataset used for training image-generating AI contained hundreds of CSAM images.” Thus, unlike the virtual CSAM at issue in Free Speech Coalition, the market for AI-generated virtual CSAM images may impact the demand for actual CSAM on which the AI models can train.
Replying to @jpreston2005@lemmy.world
So get rid of that dataset, you’ll still have systems that can generate similar images anyway. If it can generate images of things that do not and cannot exist in reality then it can generate CSAM without using real CSAM.