Artificial intelligence opening door for predators to sexually abuse children, experts warn

Image Source: Artificial intelligence - Wikipedia

 By Samantha Kaman - Posted at The Christian Post:

Artificial intelligence has made it easier for predators to sexually abuse children and harder for law enforcement agencies to hold these bad actors accountable, according to a recent report.

Britain’s top law enforcement agency, the National Crime Agency, warned that there are between 680 to 830,000 adults in the United Kingdom that pose a sexual risk to children.

NCA Director General Graeme Biggar said in a recent speech that the agency highlighted how the number is “roughly 10 times the prison population” and noted that it illustrates the dangers of the internet.

Due to the internet, sexual predators can easily access or share videos and images of child sexual abuse, and now, with AI, NCA has started seeing hyper-realistic images and videos of this type of content.

“The use of AI for child sexual abuse will make it harder for us to identify real children who need protecting and further normalize abuse,” Biggar said. “And that matters because we assess that the viewing of these images — whether real or AI-generated — materially increases the risk of offenders moving on to sexually abusing children themselves.”

“There is also no doubt that our work is being made harder as major technology companies develop their services, including rolling out end-to-end encryption, in a way that they know will make it more difficult for law enforcement to detect and investigate crime and protect children."

The Internet Watchdog Foundation, an organization that ensures the internet is safe for children by removing child sex abuse imagery, called for the implementation of stronger online safeguards in response to NCA’s report.

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