> these AI models not only lend themselves to generation of Child Sexual Abuse Material

Err, how exactly does the generation of questionnable material abuses a child? Assuming there's no actual CSAM in the training corpus, the causal link between that and children being actually exploited seems tenuous at best, similar to drawings of Japanese middle schoolers, fictions about underage people...

Those are nothing like purchasing or seeking out pictures, movies, drawings, or depictions of actual abuse of actual children. As disgusting as it may be, not all child porn is CSAM.

Of course, if there is CSAM in the training data set, that's a different story.

And let me be clear: I don't whether, nor how much, the consumption of purely fictional child porn by adults ends up hurting (or helping) actual children. For all I know it normalises associated behaviours and is responsible for a significant portion of incest cases around the world. Or it acts as a safety valve for paedophiles so they don't turn criminal. Or both, or none, I don't know. My guess though is that it's similar to how action flicks and FPS games influence gun violence.

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That was about the worst I could say about this post. Most of the rest resonated with me. I'm especially scared of the dependence and deskilling.

A starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_por... There seems to be conflicting evidence, fraught with spurious correlations on both sides. Honestly, I'm not sure which policy I'd adopt in the face of such uncertainty. I'd probably fund more research.