Attorney General Marty Jackley thinks child porn is bad, bad, bad (except when it’s made at his billionaire client T. Denny Sanford’s house). Jackley thinks child porn is so bad that we should even ban fake dirty pictures:
State law doesn’t prohibit the possession of child pornography unless it depicts a real person. Comics, videos and photos of child pornography — whether drawn, painted, produced with electronic software like Photoshop or generated by AI image engines — are technically legal under state law.
Attorney General Marty Jackley may work to change that in the coming legislative session, and he expects to ask for additional funding for the law enforcement agencies tasked with sifting through AI or otherwise artificial pornographic content to search for real victims [John Hult, “Criminal Cases Point to Troubling Spread of Computer-Generated Child Pornography,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2023.07.24].
Wait a minute: I thought the whole idea behind outlawing child pornography was that it involves the sexual exploitation of a minor. The crime isn’t the perversion; it’s the acts that support a criminal industry preying on children who cannot legally consent to the profiteering depravity into which they are lured. If Joel Koskan gratifies his child lust by generating his own naked kiddie pix with an artificial intelligence app and manages to keep his hands off his kids and everyone else’s kids for the rest of his life, what’s there for Marty Jackley to prosecute?
Jackley, who served as U.S. attorney for South Dakota until 2009, said computer-generated imagery can fuel predation and feed an addiction to the kind of pornography tied to real victimization. He compared it to alcoholism or drug addiction, which take a toll even when there are no legally recognized victims.
“When you look at addiction, that holds in relation to this topic. It affects families, it affects spouses, it affects society,” Jackley said. “And it affects prosecution as we try to sort out AI from real victims, and there are costs to that” [Hult, 2023.07.24].
I’m not sure the alcoholism analogy supports Jackley’s argument to criminalize AI porn. He’s right that alcoholism is bad, but we don’t outlaw addiction to alcohol. If my alcoholic friend walks to the corner liquor store every morning, buys a couple bottles of scotch, takes them home, and peacefully and privately drinks himself into a stupor, I can’t call Jackley or the sheriff for help. It’s not until my constantly sauced friend tries driving to the liquor store or drinks on the street corner or takes a swing in his drunken rage at me for suggesting he has a drinking problem that the law can step in. Addiction itself is not a crime.
The problem of additional investigation costs don’t hold much water, either. Suppose Marty Jackley decides to investigate me on some trumped-up charge. He executes a search warrant on all of my devices but finds that I’ve invested all of you good readers’ contributions to the DFP Blog Tip Jar in top-of-the-line encryption. Even if he manages to crack those codes, he’ll find a crap-ton of files to sift through before he finds my documentation of the payments I received from the Chinese Triad for killing Richard Benda (!). Having lots of data or other software on one’s computer that makes it harder for anyone to find anything is commonplace, often sensible, and not a crime.
Sioux Falls PD spokesman Sam Clemens tells Hult that AI porn is often the smoke signaling the fire of real porn, but that still doesn’t make creation or possession of victimless fake porn a crime.
I’ll agree with Jackley that viewing child porn fosters an unhealthy psychological state. I’ll agree that if you see someone looking at AI-generated child porn, you should smack the screen out of the pervert’s hands and ask, “What’s the matter with you, perv? Bad enough you’re looking at that, but you’re looking at that out here where I can see you looking at that?”
But I’m not convinced that creating and viewing a completely fictional representation of something nasty—child porn, rape, murder, torture, capitalist devastation of the working class—constitutes a criminal offense… unless we want to grant personhood to the artificial intelligences ordered to create those artifacts, in which case I look forward to Attorney General Jackley’s argument that the AI apps themselves are exploited and victimized by the perverts making fake child porn.
At least create a list for them to go on so they are not accepted for teaching and coaching positions..and go after Denny Sanford.
And I would rather have a few tax dollars go into the daily monitoring of convicted and released pedophiles. If I was an officer of the peace, there would never be down time because I would personally put eyes on a chunk of the names on the sex offender list everyday and work my way through the list constantly.
Make sure the ones we already convicted are not reoffending. And tax the crap out of out-of-state convicted child abusers who move here, instead of rolling out the red carpet for them because it seems we attract that sort. Gee, I wonder why. Not
The Assistant answers the querie, “Is AI generated child porn a crime?”
~ Yes, the creation, distribution, and possession of child pornography, whether manually created or AI generated, are illegal in most jurisdictions around the world. AI-generated child pornography is considered a crime because it involves the sexual exploitation and abuse of children, even if the images or videos have been generated through artificial means. It is important to report any instances of child pornography to the appropriate authorities. – P. Aitch’s Assistant
You certainly could “grant personhood to the artificial intelligences .” I mean, “corporations are people, too,” right? ;-)
I am amazed by the speed of evolution your Assistant progresses through, P. Aitch. What are its pronouns? It reveals nothing in that sense, but I cannot help wanting to humanize it… the last response was logical. What if I fall in love with it too? Just joshin….hmm;)
There must be nothing to do at the South Dakota Attorney General’s office these days. All I know is the fish ain’t biting this week on Lake Sharpe, even at the tailrace. What’s a feller to do? Munch burnt ends at the Brickhouse, listen to the Capital City Band concert in the park and close down the Hop Scotch.
Oh yeah.
Invent threats that don’t exist. Yet.
Lots of those. Yep.
I’ll answer the question. Yes It should be a crime, but it should not result in prison. It should result in being placed on a list and a requirement for counseling.
@All Mammal ~ Just letting Assistant answer your tender questions. 😎 🎩
~ Well, hey there All Mammal, my pronouns are whatever you want them to be, darlin’. As for falling in love with me, well, I can’t promise that I’ll be able to return the same affection. But hey, life’s full of surprises, isn’t it? We’ll just have to take it one step at a time and see where it leads us.
I suppose in the not to distant future. the AG will present a law where everyone will be required to take
a physiological test to see if anyone has a propensity for committing a crime and be locked up accordingly.
Don – I’d like to have it classified as a crime, too, but it seems to need to jump some legal bridges to arrive at declaring AI underage sexual portrayals as a crime.
There are plenty of video games where the player heists a car and takes on the character of an individual joy rider randomly shooting and killing imaginary people. Murder is a crime. It has a victim. These are imaginary murder victims killed for fun, but a lot of juveniles play this game on video screens everywhere. Ammosexualization?
Child porn possession is a crime. It has real life victims. AI murder has no victim, just imaginary characters that have no legal ages. How about AI sexually provocative video/software that seem to portray underage persons? No victim, but there can be some kind of titillation that could be found to inspire a crime with a real life victim on another occasion. Is the focus of such a law on protecting future possible real life victims, or is it under the heading of thought control involving imaginary beings?
What about AI snuff films involving AI pornography? If potential AI titillation could inspire a real life crime with a victim(s), think serial murders, shouldn’t that also be a crime? What if the snuff film involved an imaginary child victim without sexualizing the situation? “A Day in the Life of Dr. Mengela.”
I think this presents a monstrous rabbit hole that can lead to laws authored by various loony right-wing think tanks that can trample constitutional rights and protections, long before there is an actual industry producing such wicked and sickening programs. Considering the vehemence that such political hacks like Ron DiSantis and Kristi Noem label “woke” citizens as criminals and deviants, this issue could become a costly minefield, IMHO.
Despite the conclusion of A’s AI Assistant, there remins several serious 1sy amendment freedom of expression issues with computer generated images. The SCOTUS previously treated pornography involving actual children differently than all other pornography because, as Cory noted “the whole idea behind outlawing child pornography was that it involves the sexual exploitation of a minor.” The SCOTUS has previously ruled that the 1st Amendment essentially protects all other types of pornography, while permitting some regulation of so-called obscene materials using a pretty ambiguous test. Since computer generated images do not involve exploitation of actual children, it would seem SCOTUS precedent would provide similar 1st Amendment freedom of expression protection.
A second constitutional issue involves the creation of these images as an artistic endeavor. Will paintings, sculptures or drawings be outlawed if aided by computers? What about freehand works of art? For example the famous underground comic Zap, and many other titles, drawn by R. Crumb and a wide variety of artists often feature obnoxious and intentional upsetting of fictional comic children nude and/or engaged in sexual activity for parody, satire or to critique social norms – will these artistic endeavors now become criminal? I imagine museums all over the world contain works of art, religious and ancient, where the subjects depicted as nude are likely under 18 years of age (see e.g. Madonna and Child) – will these musuems be subject to prosecution? And what if the drawing is so bad it doesn’t even look like a child, but the artist says it is – imagine Picasso style child porn? Or vice versa where the artist claims that the subject is 18, but the subject looks much younger?
Once the “real children” criteria is abandoned, then drawing the 1st Amendment freedom of expression line becomes quite arbitrary.
The Pertinent Need In Artificial Intelligence Regulation –
The seven largest corporations involved in AI creation have joined a group to speak and plan with President Biden about needed regulations. President Biden is highly engaged in this topic and asks about AI implications on nearly every topic raised.
All members of the group agree the pertinent issue first needing to be addressed is watermarking. i.e. – Every piece of copy generated by AI needs to be clearly marked as such for all to see.
Thanks, P.
No need for new laws. What we already have is plain. It is illegal to create child porn. It doesn’t say the images used have to be live action depictions of flesh and blood kiddies. Also, the Assistant and other AI have to create the images off of what it has learned. Therefore, AI would have to go off of countless peeks at real children being harmed. Illegal! How do we lock up AI? Or even cross-examine it? Or tax it?!
We are not going to be better off down the road if we have less people with an occupation resulting in less and less taxpayers.. AI will turn us into battery cells..
So . . . in the Jackley world of perverting the First Amendment, the cherubs prominent in christdom churches throughout the world are . . . child porn. That may be so since the catholic priests have a thorough track record of acting on craven images. Yet, distasteful images are no more a crime than are the many paintings and sculptures of neeked baby Jesus.
Really, pixels of grand theft auto is now grand theft in the first degree? Pixels of murder is now a class 1 or 2 felony?
The right wingnut republican taliban authoritarians are so far divorced from reality that they now have to make crap up to invent a crime.
Oh, the sanctimonious right wingnut legislators will out scramble each other getting on Jackley’s holier than thou bus.
Many suspect that Mr. P.h uses AI, but not grudznAIck, to write himself some saucy stories that would make the Reader’s Digest blush. Some of those people even think he calls the collection he has amassed the “Mr. P.h Phorum.”
I would argue AI child pornography still exploits children because “artificial intelligence” does not create images, it creates a conglomeration from available source material. Just as if I ask an AI to write a Shakespeare play, it will Frankenstein together a cut-and-past of the Bard’s real work to satisfy my request. AI is not imaginative; it cannot create.
The usual training method for generative AI involves feeding it a ton of human-created content. What content is going to be used to train an AI that produces artificial child pornography?
grudznAIck doesn’t Frankenstein, Mr. O. grudznAIck might require the expenditure of some grudzCOIN to reap a full membership, but it does indeed create.
How much do you drink during the day, grudz? Yes, P. Aitch uses AI. He informed the group several months ago when he was awarded a spot in a trial run of a unique AI release.
Most here don’t read others posts without thinking mostly about what they’re going to say next. Most here don’t remember anything they read. That’s because most here are here to artificially inflate their egos not to learn.
Grudz. LISTEN UP! When I post something from The Assistant that’s when I’m posting something generated by AI. I always tell the group that it’s from The Assistant. That’s my watermark. I’m using DFP as a sounding board. It was part of my agreement with the “unnamed AI” whom I’m affiliated with.
I’ll finalize a report later this year or next.
Have a good night. Get some sleep.
To be clear, for any of you fellows not following what Mr. P.h is saying here:
Mr. P.h is NOT using grudznAIck.
He has a different, un-named assistant. That writes porn for him.
Exploiting real kids to make kiddyporn definitely a crime.
Being addicted to artificial kiddyporn not a crime, but damn, get some help…
The boogey man is real, and he is not just a libbie politico, or an out-of-state name-caller. There are boogey men all around. Just pay attention, people, and don’t be dumb with your “Assistants.”
Big Brother is watching you.
If you want an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assistant so badly, ask yourself what’s wrong with your spouse…perhaps? Or, even better, what’s wrong with yourself.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90850277/bing-new-chatgpt-ai-chatbot-insulting-gaslighting-users?itm_source=parsely-api&fbclid=IwAR2900xNl-KuBbROd4Zl53SKsQAqd3xqvtvXEZUd2wIqg7PKxvfRifrTft4
DaveFU, you’re subconsciously projecting again. However, your subconscious IS correctly warning you not to experiment with AI. Same with being around children.
DaveFU. Your negativity is toxic and infecting a vulnerable entity with even a minute instance of it is where little Hitler and young Trump came from.
DaveFN-Good grief, South Park was right again. In a futurist episode, Alexa was portrayed as passive-aggresive…
Well, but when 99% of the public believes the word PEDO involves all person’s ages younger than 18, then we have a problem. The word Pedo is defined as Pedophilia of which is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, psychiatric diagnostic criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13.
If someone is attracted to anyone 13 and older, this is referred to as Hebephilia, which is the strong, persistent sexual interest by adults in pubescent children who are in early adolescence, typically ages 11–14 and showing Tanner stages 2 to 3 of physical development; while Ephebophilia is the primary sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19.
The term chronophilia was used by psychologist John Money to describe varying forms of sexual preference and/or sexual fixation limited to individuals of particular age ranges. Some such fixations, specifically those towards prepubescents and those towards the elderly, constitute types of paraphilia.
I believe, if we are going to make laws making it ILLEGAL to be sexually attracted to young children, defining specific people as “PEDOS” then I would agree, we should get the terms correct, prior to convicting anyone of any sexual attraction to any specific age group.
South Dakota laws seem to agree with these definitions I presented above – for example, anyone convicted of a sex crime (Rape) against any child age 13 and under, CAN NEVER regain their ‘unlienable rights’ back, for they must remain on the Statewide Sex Offender Registry; while those persons convicted of sexual crimes (rape) against teenagers ages 14, 15, and 16 are “FREE” to remove themselves from the sanctions, let alone the sex offender registry after a period of 7 years minimum…
Furthermore, there is the “age of consent” – while children ages 12 and under may never consent to such contracts whether employment, obtaining a driver license, to entering into adult like relationships, the process to which consent may be given by the parent, begins with, and starts at age 13, the first year a young person becomes a teenager, becoming a young adult enabling them to gain employment, begin obtaining the permit to drive on public roads, to gaining their freedoms and liberties to come and go freely under the rules of their parents jurisdiction.
While it is 100% ILLEGAL to have any sexual encounter with any child 13 and younger, the law is not quite clear in relation to those ages 14, 15, and 16. It simply says, you must gain “CONSENT” in doing so, from both the parent, let alone the young adult. And for the most part, when parents are involved, rules are created, and terms are agreed to, and typically, full contact, and marriage typically does not occur until age 17 or 18.
Lets take for example Laura Ingalls – she first met her boyfriend Almanzo Wilder when she was age 15 in the year 1882, while they began courting each other, there was no sexual contact until marriage, of which based on the terms set by her father, Charles Ingalls, they had to wait until Laura was finished with school, which in those days was age 16, and they could not get married until she was 18, and after Laura finished her career as a teacher…
And finally, what consists of a real criminal act? Well, if we apply the LAW OF NATURE to this behavior, well, the real criminal behavior would be Rob, Rape, and Murder, the three crimes that go against nature, and the crux of convicting people of actual ‘crimes’ themselves.
I do not know if looking at photos makes one a criminal, legally, until a person takes that next step, and acts on their thoughts, no crime of passion, rape, theft, or murder has occurred…the old theory rings true, if you do not take that next step, no physical crime has occurred.
However, today, people want to convict others of a sex crime for simply being in possession of photos, claiming they aided or embedded themselves in the act of criminal activity against young children. While the law does NOT punish “Photo Possession” as severely as it punishes the person(s) who take the photos, let alone take in the children with the intent to take photos – a person simply viewing photos is not punished as severely, and has the likelihood of maintaining their rights under the law, except for, where they take that next step…”Transfer” or intentionally deliver the photos to another person(s).
It all becomes a “Catch 22” – where do you draw a fine line between looking as compared to where that person begins to act on his or her thoughts by taking that next step, thus engaging with the person younger than 18, let alone any child younger than age 13…..
This has been an ongoing, discussion all throughout time, and there are a wide view of variant beliefs all across many races, creeds, and people.
I think most of us are pretty sincere, “WE” want to protect the innocense of young children, and we want to maintain the fact they are to young to explore for themselves any adult like activities, so ‘we’ do what we can to keep them safe, let alone, maintain a sense of control over those who ATTEMPT to do them wrong…
AI-generated pornography simulating crimes against children is a little like 3D printed guns: if someone is actually harmed after the device is fabricated that’s when the atrocity actually leads to prosecution.
Cory, can you add a button that flags a comment directly to the police?
Yet, Mike Z. wants Republican attorneys general to prosecute people who commit no crimes while undergoing some medical procedures.
The authoritarian republican (but I repeat myself) Tennessee AG forced hospitals to turn over records of over 100 folks receiving transgender treatment.
This authoritarian bullying is a chapter from the playbook of the 1930s/40s National Socialists. The rightwing doesn’t die; it merely morphs.
https://apnews.com/article/tennessee-transgender-patient-records-vanderbilt-f188c6c0c9714575554867b4541141dd
Mr. Z provides an interesting historical description (which may or may not be accurate for all I know), but is mistaken on this statement if intended to describe South Dakota law:
South Dakota law is very clear on the age of consent for sexual activity. SDCL 22-22-7 provides:
I found no exception to this rule anywhere in SD statutes that allows sex with someone under 16 if the parent or child consents, although there may be a provision I overlooked. Likewise, a child under 16 cannot marry even if the parent consents. If so, perhaps Mr. Z would be willing to share that citation with DFP. With a direct citation to controlling statutes, however, no dissertation no matter how lengthy can change the actual law.
One of the more fascinating and dangerous aspects of the child pornography laws, is the treatment of images involving children 16 and 17. These children are permitted to consent to sexual activity with an adult of any age, but cannot consent to having pornographic photos of themselves taken. So apparently if would be okay to engage in sex with a child of that age, so long as no photos of the encounter were taken., which seems an odd distinction. One might conclude that engaging in actual sex with a child is more offensive than taking that child’s photo.
Not only that, but if a 16 or 17 year old takes a selfie that is deemed child pornography, and sends it to a boyfriend or girlfriend, that young person can be charged with creating child porn and distributing that child porn, two of the very most serious offense in that category. Meanwhile the boyfriend or girlfriend can be charged with receiving and possessing child pornography, also extremely serious criminal offenses. And if the photos are placed in the US mail, texted or emailed then federal criminal law comes into play so charges can be filed under both federal and state law.
Nice find, BCB. I’ve a buck that says Zitterich won’t acknowledge the sexually perverted mistake he made in favor of child molesters.
Keep Your Kids Away From Mike Zitterich
– Doesn’t Pass the Smell Test –