Technology

Do deepfake explicit images created from a non-explicit image actually qualify as CSAM?

It's bullying with a sexual element. The fact that it uses AI or deepfakes is secondary, just as it was secondary when it was photoshop, just as it was secondary when it was cutting out photos. It's always about using it bully someone.

This is different because it's easier. It's not really different because it (can be) more realistic, because it was never about being realistic, otherwise blatantly unrealistic images wouldn't have been used to do it. Indeed, the fact that it can be realistic will help blunt the impact of the leaking of real nudes.

Historically, the respectability of a woman depended on her sexuality. In many conservative cultures and communities, that is still true. Spreading the message that deepfakes are some particular horrible form of harassment reinforces that view.

If having your head on the model of a nude model is a terrible crime, then what does that say about the nude model? What does it say about women who simply happen to develop a larger bosom or lips? What does it say about sex before marriage?

The implicit message here is simply harmful to girls and women.

That doesn't mean that we should tolerate harassment. But it needs to be understood that we can do no more to stop this kind of harassment than we can do to stop any other kind.

This definitely will not add in any way to the way women and girls are made to feel entirely disgustingly dehumanized by every man or boy in their lives. Groups of men and boys reducing them and their bodies down to vivid sexual fantasies that they can quickly generate photo realistic images of.

Sexual attraction doesn't necessarily involve dehumanization. Unlike most other kinds of interest in a human being, it doesn't require interest in their personality, but these are logically not the same.

In general you are using emotional arguments for things that work not through emotion, but through literal interpretation. That's like using metric calculations for a system that expects imperial. Utterly useless.

If the person in the image is underaged then it should be classified as child pornography.

No, it's not. It's literally a photorealistic drawing based on a photo (and a dataset to make the generative model). No children have been abused to produce it. Laws work literally.

If the woman who’s photo is being used hasnt consented to this then it should be classified as sexual exploitation.

No, because the woman is not being literally sexually exploited. Her photo being used without consent is, I think, subject of some laws. There are no new fundamental legal entities involved.

Women and girls have faced degrees of this kind of sexual exploitation by men and boys since the latter half of the 20th century. But this is a severe escalation in that behavior. It should be illegal to do this and it should be prosecuted when and where it is found to occur.

I think I agree. But it's neither child pornography nor sexual exploitation and can't be equated to them.

There are already existing laws for such actions, similar to using a photo of the victim and a pornographic photo, paper, scissors, pencils and glue. Or, if you think the situation is radically different, there should be new punishable crimes introduced.

Otherwise it's like punishing everyone caught driving while drunk for non-premeditated murder. One is not the other.

That could be a socially healthy place to end up at. I don't see it anytime soon though. Just look at the other response I got.