*Warning* Mentions of child sexual abuse and exploitation
AI has in many ways, been a beam of light across various sectors and industries. Helping to empower sustainable energy to even helping redefine autism treatment. The possibilities of AI accompanied by AR and VR technology hold no bounds. However, a twisted turn in the use of AI has sparked large concern about the technology’s implications on society.
Breaking news has sparked public outrage at the emergence of AI technology being used to create and sell life-like child sexual abuse images on an ‘industrial scale’. Some individuals have been reported to be paying subscription accounts on mainstream content-sharing websites. Such as Patreon and Midjourney.
Patreon has said it holds a ‘zero tolerance’ policy about such imagery on its site.
“Child sexual abuse offenders adopt all technologies and some believe the future of child sexual abuse material lies in AI-generated content”. – GCHQ, the government’s intelligence, security and cyber agency.
Individuals behind the illicit trade are using Stable Diffusion software to create such damaging images. This software relies on AI to formulate images from text instructions by analysing pictures sourced online.
Such images in question are apparently being promoted on a Japanese social media platform called Pixiv, which is intended for animation, before being sold on the US-based platform Patreon.
It is illegal to take, create, share or possess any indecent images and pseudo-photographs of people under the age of 18 in the UK.
Since this report, a spokesperson for Pixiv has said the company is proactively strengthening its monitoring systems and is allocating substantial resources to counteract problems related to developments in AI.
Ian Critchley, the NPCC lead of child safeguarding has warned that a paedophile could, “move along that scale of offending from thought, to synthetic, to actually the abuse of a live child”.
To some, this twisted turn in events for the use of AI applications comes as no surprise. Many individuals have openly spoken about the uncharted dangers of such advanced technology. Is this the beginning of the downfall of AI?
Source: Illegal Trade in AI Child Sex Abuse Images Exposed