Experts warn that the development of realistic images of children in sexual situations is a troubling trend that artificial intelligence is enabling.
This trend could lead to a rise in the incidence of sex crimes against children in real life.
The Dark Side Of AI
Following the debut of the chatbot ChatGPT, which was a turning point for the application of artificial intelligence, platforms that can mimic human speech or produce lifelike visuals shot to fame in late 2017 and continued to grow in popularity through 2023.
While using the technology for work or school assignments sparked the imagination of people all over the world, some have embraced the platforms for more sinister uses.
The National Crime Agency, the UK’s top agency for fighting organized crime, issued a warning this week that the prevalence of computer-generated graphic photographs of children is “normalizing” pedophilia and other troubling behavior against children in a “radicalizing” way.
The NCA’s director general, Graeme Biggar, stated in a recent study that the organization believes that watching these photos, whether they are real or artificial intelligence (AI)-generated, considerably increases the likelihood that criminals may go on to sexually abuse children themselves.
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The Connection between AI And Child Sexual Abuse
According to the organization, there may be up to 830,000 individuals in the UK who are a sexual threat to children, or 1.6% of the adult population.
Biggar claims that the estimated number is ten times higher than the prison population in the UK.
According to Biggar, viewing explicit photos is a common component of child sexual abuse cases. With the aid of artificial intelligence (AI), making and viewing sexual images could “normalize” the abuse of children in the real world.
[The estimated numbers] partly reflect a better understanding of a threat that has historically been underappreciated, and partly a real increase caused by the radicalizing effect of the internet, where the widespread availability of videos and images of children being abused and raped, and groups sharing and discussing the images, has normalized such behavior.
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