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.
But you are allowed to stage a murder; hire a film crew to record your staged murder; pay television stations and websites to show a preview of your staged murder, and sell a recording of your staged murder to anyone who wants to buy. Depending on how graphic it is, you might be required to put an age advisory on your work and not broadcast it on public airwaves; but that is about the extent of the regulation.
You can even stage murders of children and show that.
Even if the underlying murder is real, there is still no law outlawing having a recording of it. Even producing a recording of a murder isn’t technically illegal; although depending on the context you might still be implicated in a conspiracy to commit murder.
Sexual assult of children is the only crime for which the mere depiction of the crime is itself a crime.
Okay. Why should I care that this is an exception case?
Laws aren’t derived from clean general principles by the gods on Mt. Olympus.
Another thing that you “can’t we think of the poor, helpless pedos that want to nut?” people don’t seem to think of is that if AI CSAM grows increasingly more realistic and we carve out an exception for it, how can you enforce laws against non-generated CSAM? You’d have to have some computer forensics asshole involved in every case to prove whether or not the images are generated, which would likely produce a chilling effect over time on regular CSAM cases, and all of this for the “societal benefit” of allowing pedos a more gratifying wank.
For the societal benefit of not ceding our rights to government.
Today it’s pedophilia, but what about if Trump wins and legally designates trans people as pedophiles?
This is a power we cannot allow the government to have.
The right to create realistic looking CSAM is not a right I give a shit about having.
What if a lawless dictator does crazy things? I’m not sure the law (or lack thereof) will have anything to do with that scenario.
The whole idea of “if X is illegal, then the government will use the law against X against us” only matters in the context of a government following the law.
If they’re willing to color outside the lines and the courts say the law doesn’t apply to them then it doesn’t matter one fucking bit.
I’m not suggesting they’ll abandon the rule of law. I’m suggesting they’ll use this as precedent to legally oppress us.
And I’m saying that they won’t have to.
Which is a terrible excuse for allowing bad laws. Sure, ok, let’s assume you’re right and this specific group will break the law anyway. Maybe let’s prepare for other tyrannical groups?
Other tyrannical groups that also won’t follow the law? I don’t think laws will “prepare” for those either.