I recently attended a national meeting of the National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and listened to the latest updates from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) on AI dangers to children, the growing levels of sextortion, how manuals are being produced online by AI for predators about how to groom a child, the use of “nudify” which is an app to create naked images of children by digitally removing their clothing, and other topics. I left a bit stunned — and believe me, it’s difficult to stun me at this stage in my career — about how desperately far behind the curve we are at protecting children from these new dangers. AI presents hazards that we, as a society, are NOT prepared to conquer as of now.
Having used AI to gather information/research in the past, I decided to ask Chat GPT to tell me “What are the dangers to children about AI and child sexual abuse?” Interestingly AND alarmingly, AI can tell us EXACTLY what the dangers are to children.