Hugh Nelson, 27, from Bolton, jailed after transforming normal pictures of children into sexual abuse imagery

A man who used AI to create child abuse images using photographs of real children has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

In the first prosecution of its kind in the UK, Hugh Nelson, 27, from Bolton, was convicted of 16 child sexual abuse offences in August, after an investigation by Greater Manchester police (GMP).

Nelson had used Daz 3D, a computer programme with an AI function, to transform “normal” images of children into sexual abuse imagery, Greater Manchester police said. In some cases, paedophiles had commissioned the images, supplying photographs of children with whom they had contact in real life.

He was also found guilty of encouraging other offenders to commit rape.

  • Flying SquidM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    258 days ago

    I agree, but if there were some way to create CSAM without using real children (I’m not sure how you would train such an AI model), it would probably be worth seeing if that did anything to make pedophiles less likely to act out on their desires.

    Because my god, we need to figure out something.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      208 days ago

      I mean trying to help them get treatment instead of going all pod-people on anyone showing even the possibility of being attracted to kids would be helpful.

      • Flying SquidM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        228 days ago

        I’ve been saying that for ages. Obviously we don’t want to enable any pedophiles to do anything horrific to children, but we’re at a state right now where if you have those urges to begin with, you’re basically already told to accept that you’re an incurable monster. So why not act on the urges?

        Somehow we need to get through to such people that they need to get help before they do anything terrible. I’m not sure how to do that in the current climate though.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          -18 days ago

          “it would probably be worth seeing if that did anything to make pedophiles less likely to act out on their desires.”

          What’s the implication here? You’re saying we should look into placating child predators by creating AI CP for them to consume?

          • Flying SquidM
            link
            fedilink
            English
            48 days ago

            That would be worth a scientific study, don’t you think? Isn’t it worth trying to find ways to stop child predators before they become predators?

            You seem to think I’m suggesting that the UK government create childporn.gov.uk or something.

    • JohnEdwa
      link
      fedilink
      English
      7
      edit-2
      8 days ago

      The way AI models work, you don’t have to train it on the thing you want it to do, you can ask it to combine the things it knows about. Take any of the meme loras for example, like pepe punch or patcha.

      So literally any model that can generate pictures of naked adults and clothed children - which is to say almost all of them - is going to be at least somewhat competent in creating CP unless those prompts are being actively censored and blocked.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        27 days ago

        Wouldn’t that generate images of children with small-sized adult bodies?

        If it doesn’t know what a child’s body looks like, it can’t just figure it out.

        • JohnEdwa
          link
          fedilink
          English
          17 days ago

          The datasets will have enough images of kids in bikinis and underwear from stock photos and clothes shop listings etc to figure that part out rather easily.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      58 days ago

      Train it to depict humans that look like anime characters that are definitely 18 or older immortal dragons that are taking on the bodies of young human beings

      Disclaimer

      I am not condoning, endorsing, or suggesting this