On February 26, ABC News reports, Europol announced the arrest of 25 individuals it accuses of being "part of a criminal group engaging in the distribution of images of minors fully generated by artificial intelligence."

Again, for emphasis: "Fully generated by artificial intelligence."

Yes, sexual abuse of children is a horrific crime. Yes, those who engage in it are criminals. But can imaginary characters be "minors?" And are fictional depictions of those characters being victimized really "crimes?"

Over the years, politicians and law enforcement agencies have increasingly exploited such claims to groom the public into moral panic at the expense of REAL children suffering REAL sexual abuse in REAL life.

It's a pretty simple con. Most people rightly find the sexual molestation of children horrifying. They want it stopped. They want the perpetrators brought to justice.

But investigating and proving real crimes is hard work.

Police departments would rather run sting operations with fake victims -- cops posing online as minors available for sex -- for easy arrests and good publicity, than put their officers to the more difficult (and expensive) task of conducting real investigations and tracking down real criminals.

Prosecutors would rather try those cases, which require no evidence of an actual victim or an actual crime, than have to present a real victim, a real perpetrator, and real proof to a jury.

Politicians live in perpetual need of gut-wrenching topics to virtue signal to voters about, and since real child molestation and real child porn are already illegal, they make do with promoting new laws against fake child molestation, fake child porn, "child-like" sex dolls, etc. ... and, as noted above, entirely fictional material "fully generated by artificial intelligence."

None of this makes our children any safer -- the real problems aren't going away and for all we know might even be getting worse -- but it's great for law enforcement budgets and helps politicians herd panicked voters to the polls.

Your tax dollars at work, folks. And here's the thing:

While the legal availability of AI-generated child pornography, "child-like" sex dolls, etc., wouldn't eliminate real child sexual abuse, it would probably reduce the incidence.

Put another way, at least SOME pedophiles are probably prone to settle for fantasy, especially if the difference between fantasy and reality is the difference between freedom and imprisonment. If they face prison either way, more of them will opt to really molest real children instead of fantasize that they're molesting fake children.

And to put it a third way: Those who support laws against "fully generated by artificial intelligence" child porn objectively support more real child porn, and more of the crimes that go into its creation.

That's reality, not a story "fully generated by artificial intelligence."

originally published at the Garrison Center

When Prosecuting Imaginary Crime Promotes Real Crime