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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

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I dunno, while you could certainly make an argument that simply creating the images is fine, I think distributing them is, though probably incorrectly categorized as CSAM, still something that should carry punishment. Regular teen horniness fundamentally sexualizes a lot of stuff, but stuff that looks realistic and is shown to others is pretty much a stronger version of classic bullying and should be in the same category, more or less (that is, maybe a misdemeanor).

For context, here is a list (at least in my state, Utah, so might vary) of possible misdemeanors a minor student could commit, what level each is, and whether the school would refer it to court or not. "Accessing pornographic material on school property" is a Misdemeanor B, referable. Public Urination/Defecation is an Infraction, default non-referable. Disorderly conduct or other disruption stuff ranges from Infraction through Misdemeanor B. So not a whole lot of directly comparable things, but a misdemeanor seems about on the level.

Though bullying IS classified as a crime, it does not seem to have a specific associated criminal penalty (not sure how that all works). FYI, they in the law define: "Bullying" means a school employee or student intentionally committing a written, verbal, or physical act against a school employee or student that a reasonable person under the circumstances should know or reasonably foresee will have the effect of: causing physical or emotional harm to the school employee or student... [or] placing the school employee or student in reasonable fear of: harm to the school employee's or student's physical or emotional well-being... [or] creating a hostile, threatening, humiliating, or abusive educational environment due to: the pervasiveness, persistence, or severity of the actions. (Irrelevant bits omitted). So clearly seems to fit.

Note that without the distribution component, bullying doesn't fit. Even 40 years ago if someone started passing around those magazine rips, they could probably be on the hook for harassment or something like that.

I agree that spreading such pictures around could reasonably be considered bullying and I would be fine for schools to punish it. Even in a university setting this applies.

I would also say that there ought to be different standards to "normal figures" and celebrities, focusing now on adults. Or else you are going to be putting a lot of people in prison for creating and if done in a discord server therefore automatically spreading over discord nudes that look like celebs. Another issue is where you draw the line. For example is a generated picture were it is said to be looking like a celebrity something that is going to qualify? One other facet of this is that celebrities become to an extend the faces of our image of attraction.

On the other hand, even celebrities deserve to not have their reputation be perceived based on the AI model, and someone pretending that such AI generated content represents them. There is also a moral question regarding commercialization that is a bigger issue than a random creating a voice model based on Obama, Scarlet, Trump, etc to play around and spreading it in smaller platforms. Such as the dispute about whether Sam Alatman used Scarlet Joghansson's voice for his AI tool. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/22/scarlett-johansson-sam-altmans-washington-00159507

On Monday night, Scarlett Johansson — who famously voiced an AI in the movie Her — alleged that OpenAI had appropriated her voice without permission for a new AI assistant tool. Altman and OpenAI say the voice belonged to a different actress,