AI helped pedophiles create content about child sexual abuse and then sell it – a criminal scheme was exposed in Britain.
As shown investigation BBC, to create images, the authors use Stable Diffusion, an artificial intelligence software that helps create images for use in art or graphic design. The user description is sufficient for this program.
Reporters found that the program is being used to create realistic depictions of child sexual abuse, including the rape of young children and infants. Images are advertised using hashtags on platforms such as the Japanese image-sharing website Pixiv, and you can even pay for the content you want on Patreon*.
A Pixiv spokesperson said the company is paying close attention to solving this problem. He also assured that he banned all realistic depictions of sexual content involving minors. Patreon says it has a “zero tolerance” policy for such content and claims to have removed a huge amount of such content.
The results of the study are shocking – images of child abuse are created on an “industrial scale”, in some places up to a thousand a month. User comments on some images in Pixiv ambiguously indicate that they have a sexual interest in children. And some offer to provide them with real videos and images of child abuse.
The UK government agency for intelligence, security and cybernetics says:
“Child abusers are adopting all the technology, and some experts believe that the future of child sexual abuse material depends on AI-generated content.”
Child protection experts say they can’t resist the thousands of “artificial intelligence-generated images of sexualized child abuse” that are easily and quickly created and shared on dark pedophile forums. informs The Washington Post. This “explosion” of frighteningly realistic images could help normalize sexualized abuse of minors, draw real children into a trap, and make it harder for law enforcement to find real victims, experts said.
In the meantime, artificial intelligence continues to evolve at a rapid pace, and questions about the future risks it can pose to privacy, rights, and human security are coming to the fore.
*Patreon is a website where creative creators can distribute their work through a paid subscription or provide additional content to their subscribers.
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