Magistrates have just tried for the first time a man who had created pornographic images featuring children on his computer, using artificial intelligence.
Published
Reading time :
2 min
:quality(50)/2023/09/26/gettyimages-1536279408-6512971840cce629603303.jpg)
If it fascinates scientists, artificial intelligence also makes judges think a lot. These find themselves confronted with new forms of virtual delinquency and crime. A man in his forties has just been sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He was formally charged in early August by a court in the city of Busan for creating child pornography using artificial intelligence programs. THE image generator, which he installed last April, is fairly easy to use software. Simply type several keywords into the search engine to describe the desired image. The rendering style can be defined, a painting, a manga or a very realistic photo. In a few seconds, the artificial image creates the image corresponding to the request.
“Ultrarealistic” images
By searching the man’s computer, investigators discovered that he had thus manufactured 360 child pornography photos. He kept them on his computer. He had not broadcast them. LJustice considered that these photos fell under the law condemning the possession of pedophile images, tThe whole trial revolved around this question.
>> Child pornography and online terrorism: more than 82,000 requests for content removal in 2022
The accused’s lawyers tried to explain that the man had done nothing wrong since he only had photos generated by artificial intelligence and that none of the images involved real children. They insisted he had not abused anyone or participated in any pedophile rings. But the court ruled that he still fell under the Korean law on the illegal possession of child pornography images. All of his creations, the judges explained, had a character “ultrarealistic”.
Associations very worried
This type of trial is still quite rare. There have been a few similar cases in recent months, particularly in Canada. A man used “deepfake” or “hyper-faking” technology to put children’s faces on bodies in several sexual videos. He received a three-year prison sentence.
The specialized associations are very worried. They fear an explosion of cases, particularly in countries where legislation on artificial intelligence is not yet complete.