Cops lure pedophiles with AI pics of teen girl. Ethical triumph or new disaster?
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
This is going to get interesting in future for sure.
Is there specific case law concerning AI depictions? Maybe not, but it is already a federal crime to knowingly produce, distribute, receive, or possesses with intent to distribute "a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting" that (in simple terms) are both obscene and depict or appear to depict minors in sexually explicit scenarios, and there is very little reason to think that courts would carve out AI from this general prohibition.
18 USC Sec. 1446A: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1466A
No, it wasn't.
> A new bill, the PROTECT Act, came about.
This is a section added by the PROTECT Act. (The link includes reference to the law by which the section was added to the US code; one of the great things about LII is that it has added/amended information, not just the text.) It has nearly identical coverage to what was struck down, except that where what was struck down was struck down on the basis of not being limited strictly to obscene material, this added obscenity (by name in one place, and using the exact language of the Supreme Court standard for obscenity in another) to the former rule.
> But it only bans CP artwork that is "virtually indistinguishable" from real photos.
You are invited to read the text, this is simply false. (The PROTECT Act also added the “virtual identical” limitation you describe to the definitions applicable to the original offense, as well as adding this new one with the obscenity limitation, as a belt-and-suspenders approach — basically, the Supreme Court said that they could prohibit things that either meet the case law standard for obscenity or which has a sufficient nexus to actual come abuse, so the PROTECT Act took the original single prohibition and replaced it with two, one which was limited to be targeted on obscenity (18 USC §1446A) and one which was narrowed to what they felt might pass muster as sufficiently related to actual child abuse (the original prohibition with definitions at 18 USC § 2556, amended with the “virtually indistinguishable” restriction. The latter is the Constitutionally weaker of the two; that obscenity is not protected is well-established.)
I've read Naked Lunch, but I don't remember any descriptions of child abuse. Not saying I don't believe you, just wondering why I wouldn't remember the most fucked up part of a book.
. . . .
>The Mugwump slips the noose over the boy's head and tightens the knot caressingly behind the left ear. The boy's penis is retracted, his balls tight. He looks straight ahead breathing deeply. The Mugwump sidles around the boy goosing him and caressing his genitals in hieroglyphs of mockery. He moves in behind the boy with a series of bumps and shoves his cock up the boy's ass. He stands there moving in circular gyrations. The guests shush each other, nudge and giggle. Suddenly the Mugwump pushes the boy forward into space, free of his cock. He steadies the boy with hands on the hip bones, reaches up with his stylized hiero- glyph hands and snaps the boy's neck. A shudder passes through the boy's body. His penis rises in three great surges pulling his pelvis up, ejaculates immediately.
--- Via https://www.electroniclibrary21.ru/literature/burroughs/nake...
This is kind of like leaving a bait car parked and running with the doors open. Oh look I'm a child online! This is what I look like. They cannot attempt to seduce the pedophile. However, they can let them do what pedophiles do. Then, when the pedophile makes an attempt to meet with the "Child" they can arrest them for attempting since they have demonstrated intent and action to make good on that intent.
In this case, they do the same with Snapchat.