Most of these comments I think are off the mark. For some reason anything to do with EU or the UK legislating to protect citizenry is seen as some Orwellian conspiracy to mind control people. I agree some of the policies feel like always using a hammer - but I strongly suspect it's because the tech industry is clearly not playing ball.
Children being sent dick pics, or AI generated nudes of them being sent around schools, etc. are real problems facing real normal people.
I think people here need to be reminded that the average person doesn't care about technology. They will be happy for their phones to automatically block nude pictures by Government rule if the tech companies do not improve their social safety measures. This is the double edged sword: these same people are not tech savvy enough to lock down their children's phones, they expect it to be safe, they paid money for it to be "safe", and even if you lock a phone down, it doesn't stopped their class mates sending them AI porn of other class mates.
Musk is living proof that a non zero number of these giant tech companies are happy for child porn ("fake" or not) to be posted on their platform. If I was in his shoes, it would be pretty high up on my list to make sure Grok isn't posting pornography. It's not hard to be a good person.
The things you mention are already illegal. The effective proven solution is to enforce existing laws, to punish and deter bad behaviour like any other crime.
This incongruence is why a lot of people don't take the reasoning at face value and see it as only rhetorical justification for increased surveillance, which is widely understood as something the state wants do do anyway.
How do you deal with a crime that isn’t reported due to things like shame?
Not to say that we need to scan messages to enforce nudes not to be sent, but I don’t think you can say “just enforce existing laws” and be done with it, it’s not that simple.
If people don’t report crime then we have to leave it. The answer can’t be just to invade everyone’s privacy looking for crimes (before they’re even committed!)
Of the crimes that are reported, I think a lot go nowhere.
The lack of proper enforcement breeds distrust. The government already has access to WAY more data than it needs and... nothing is happening? People are still getting unsolicited dick pics and nobody seems to care?
The only reasonable conclusion is that the government wants the data because it wants it. The crime angle is just one that is easy for people to swallow. See also: think of the children!
Perhaps His Majesty’s Government could establish mandatory thought scanning using cutting edge technology[0] to ensure that no crimes go unreported due to shame, dishonesty, or threats. Just step into the scanning booth once a week, a minor inconvenience to ensure your safety. Surely you have nothing to hide?
I posted a reply here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46599842 that addresses why I think "this is already a crime" doesn't go far enough, and why these laws are being introduced.
> Children being sent dick pics, or AI generated nudes of them being sent around schools, etc. are real problems facing real normal people.
These are relatively minor problems. Certainly not something that warrants invasive government intervention.
If parents are that worried about their kids seeing some porn, then they should either not give smartphones to them at all or install some kind of local protection software.
Can I ask photoshop to generate the image and it magically does it?
If Grok doesn't have the controls in place, and Elon Musk refuses to add them, then it is a child porn machine. I would not want to be on the side defending that.
AI tools have democratised a lot of previously skilled labour, and now law needs to catch up. That is how the world has always worked. I'm sure piracy wasn't a major concern before we had ships transporting commerce.
Children being sent dick pics, or AI generated nudes of them being sent around schools, etc. are real problems facing real normal people.
I think people here need to be reminded that the average person doesn't care about technology. They will be happy for their phones to automatically block nude pictures by Government rule if the tech companies do not improve their social safety measures. This is the double edged sword: these same people are not tech savvy enough to lock down their children's phones, they expect it to be safe, they paid money for it to be "safe", and even if you lock a phone down, it doesn't stopped their class mates sending them AI porn of other class mates.
Musk is living proof that a non zero number of these giant tech companies are happy for child porn ("fake" or not) to be posted on their platform. If I was in his shoes, it would be pretty high up on my list to make sure Grok isn't posting pornography. It's not hard to be a good person.