This might be a controversial post.
Now that everybody is getting railed up about Elon Musk's #Grok producing #sexually charged text (or images?) involving minors, I wonder if there isn't a certain hypocrisy in that discussion.
Are we again at the "video games cause mass shootings" point?
As long as no real child sex abuse material was used for training and no real person's identity (e.g. face) is used, I don't see the harm.
Actually,
1/2
as a parent, I feel far more comfortable if wannabe child abusers¹ satisfy their desires in private with a chatbot or a doll in whatever shape, as if they were trying to abuse real children, be it online or offline.
2/2
¹they call themselves "paedophiles", but it's not the right word, as there is nothing loving and caring in what they want.
@mina
> As long as no real child sex abuse material was used for training and no real person's identity (e.g. face) is used, I don't see the harm
Yes, this is a controversial take, at least in some cultures. There is a strong parallel with the lolicon debate:
https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/335
In Japan the social consensus seems to agree with you; no harm, no foul. Whereas in the US there tends to be a presumption that simulation is a gateway to realization.
This is quite a rabbit hole.
Thank you for sharing the blog post.
I haven't fully made my mind upon the whole issue, yet, but I have the strong impression that most people treat the subject without much concern for honest intellectual analysis, nuance and empirical data.
@mina
> most people treat the subject without much concern for honest intellectual analysis, nuance and empirical data
Indeed, it's an emotionally loaded issue, tangled up in all sorts of cultural boundaries. Many people take a hard binary view; you're with us, or you're with the child abusers.
It reminds me of the debate around decriminalising homosexual sex, which was treated by opponents of decriminalisation as inseparable from sex with kids.
