[MurkyLabs]

I'm not sure if there's been talk about it but it does make you wonder, would this AI generated CSAM 'saite' the abuser's needs and/or would it spread the idea that it isn't bad and possibly create more abusers who then go on to abuse physical children. Would those individuals have done it without the AI. I believe there's still debate over whether abuse is a result of nature or nurture but that starts to get into theoretical and philosophy. To answer your question about who the victim is I would say the children who those images are based off of. As well as any future children that are harmed due to exposure of these images or due to the abusers possibly seeking real content. I think for the most part AI generated porn hurts everyone involved.

[viraptor]

There's definitely at least some people who will be influenced by being repeatedly exposed to images. We know that usual conditioning ideas work. (Like presence of some type of images mixed in with other sexual content) On the other hand, I remember someone on HN claiming their own images are out there in CSAM collections and they'd prefer someone using those if it stops anyone from hurting others.

[ethical_source]

The need to fight CSAM also provides a pretext for broader censorship. Look at all the people in this thread salivating over the prospect of using Grok generations to take down Musk, whom they hate for allowing people to express wrongthink on X. If they ever regain broad censorship powers over AI or people, they definitely won't stop at blocking CSAM.

[wizzwizz4]

Lots of research has been done on this topic. You say "let some science happen", and then two paragraphs later say "according to the research": so has or hasn't research taken place? (Last time I looked into this, I came away with the impression that most people considered pædophiles are not exclusively attracted to children: I reject your claim that the "no choice" claim is evidenced, and encourage you to show us the research you claim to have.)

I don't think you're engaging with this topic in good faith.

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Replying to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46504101 in an edit, due to rate-limiting.

> Whether it is exclusive or not is not really relevant to the point.

Whether it's exclusive or not is very relevant to the point, because sexual fetishes and paraphilias are largely mutable. In much the same way that a bi woman can swear off men after a few bad experiences, or a monogamous person in a committed relationship can avoid lusting after other people they'd otherwise find attractive, someone with non-child sexual interests can avoid centring children in their sexuality, and thereby avoid developing further sexual interests related to children. (Note that operant conditioning, sometimes called "conversion therapy" in this context, does not achieve these outcomes.) I imagine it's not quite so easy for people exclusively sexually-attracted to children (though note that one's belief about their sexuality is not necessarily the same as one's actual sexuality – to the extent that "actual sexuality" is a meaningful notion).

You may be interested in Age of Onset and Its Correlates in Men with Sexual Interest in Children (https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC6377...).

> Can you link me to research on how AI generated CSAM consumption affects offending rates?

No, because "AI-generated" hasn't been a thing for long enough that I'd expect good research on the topic. However, there's no particular reason to believe it'd be different to consumption of similar material of other provenance.

It's a while since I researched this, but I've found you a student paper on this subject: https://openjournals.maastrichtuniversity.nl/Marble/article/.... This student has put more work into performing a literature review for their coursework than I'm willing to do for a HN comment. However, skimming the citations, I recognise some of these names as cranks (e.g. Ray Blanchard), and some papers seem to describe research based on the pseudoscientific theories of Sigmund Freud (another crank). Take this all with a large pinch of salt.

> For instance, virtual child pornography can cause a general decline in sexual child abuse, but the possibility still remains that in some cases it could lead to practicing behavior.

I remember reading research about the circumstances under which there is a positive relationship, which obviously didn't turn up in this student's literature review. My recent searches have been using the same sorts of keywords as this student, so I don't expect to find that research again any time soon.

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I found a proper literature review: https://medcraveonline.com/AHOAJ/fifty-most-cited-research-p... Probably reading these papers will give you a good introduction to the field.