Paedophiles using AI to turn singers and film stars into kids

Paedophiles are using artificial intelligence (AI) to create images of celebrities as children. According to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), predators are sharing images of a well-known female singer reimagined as a child. According to one dark web forum, images of child actors are also being manipulated to make them sexual.

Hundreds of images of real child sexual abuse victims are also being created using custom image generators. The information comes from the IWF’s most recent report on the growing problem, which is attempting to raise awareness about the dangers of paedophiles by utilising AI systems that can generate images from simple text instructions.

Since these powerful image-generation systems became public, researchers have warned that they could be abused to generate illicit images, reports Technology News UK.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman and US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas issued a joint statement in May pledging to combat the “alarming rise in despicable AI-generated images of children sexually exploited by paedophiles.”

According to the IWF report, researchers spent a month logging AI imagery on a single darknet child abuse website and discovered nearly 3,000 synthetic images that are illegal under UK law. According to analysts, there is a new trend in which predators take single photos of well-known child abuse victims and recreate many more of them in various sexual abuse settings.