This is exactly what my comment earlier was talking about. I could see how using AI-generated images in therapy could useful, but just putting them out in the open is not something I think is a good idea. However, I definitely could see a response being that so few people are in therapy for pedophilic disorder, so we'd really only be impacting those who've already committed offenses and are being rehabilitated.

I understand what they are trying to get at here, I just think this will not be as effective as a harm reduction strategy as something like needle exchange. Also, in needle exchange, the most prominent victim is the person themselves. I think it's different when the offender and victim are two different people.

I could see how AI-generated CSA could be used in a therapeutic setting to do this. I feel like maybe psychologists could be figuring out how the person's mind is responding to the images and try to change the response so that they are no longer aroused by the images. I think they are probably already doing something similar to this but this could allow for more understanding maybe. This also could come with it's own set of issues I'd imagine.

I could see this possibly leading someone who otherwise wouldn't look at virtual CSA material to look at it because it's AI-generated and therefore "not hurting anyone." Or, someone with pedophilic disorder who has not offended and resisted looking at CSA material now thinks it's okay and we've almost "created" a new offender.

This seems like a good idea, but (1) the people creating CSA could probably figure out a way to embed this same watermark if they are already able to hide from law enforcement online and (2) it seems wild that we would use AI to solve a problem (real CSA) and then use it on itself to solve a new problem it has created (determining fake vs. real CSA). What if, instead of addressing a problem by creating a new problem, we just addressed the initial problem.

This is very scary. Both in terms of sexually explicit images but also in terms of basic images. We won't be able to trust anything we see online.

I think there could be a better alternative here. Instead of replacing the market with AI CSA, we could focus more money and attention into research and treatment of pedophilic disorder and also awareness of the real impact and victims for those viewing CSA online.

"less harmful"... but they acknowledge it's still harmful