Posted on 09/27/2024 8:46:23 PM PDT by Red Badger
CLIO, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – A 25-year-old Michigan man has been arrested after allegedly using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate child pornography from photos of children found online. Trevor Klinert faces multiple felony charges for using AI across 112 different websites to produce explicit images, according to the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office. The suspect’s crimes are the first AI-generated child porn case for the GHOST (Genesee Human Oppression Strike Team) task force, marking a disturbing new trend in online exploitation activities.
AI tools exploited in predator’s scheme. Sheriff Chris Swanson explained in a press conference posted Facebook that Klinert’s operation began by sourcing images of children from social media, which he then fed into various AI programs designed to create explicit content from what was described as “porn generators.”
Klinert allegedly targeted images of children, modifying them with the help of the AI tools to fulfill his fantasies. The case came to law enforcement’s attention after Klinert threatened to use pornographic material against someone, leading to an investigation.
Swanson said, “It’s shocking to parents that somebody could have a photo that was posted innocently, and a predator can give it to an AI, in this case 112 websites – 112 AI-generating websites – to filter what he felt was the best way to present his victim, fantasized.”
Not the first time Klinert charged. Repeat offender faces major prison time. This isn’t Klinert’s first brush with the law. In 2017, he was convicted of a similar child pornography crime, serving just one year for using a computer to commit the offense. This time, he faces much more severe penalties as he is charged with four counts of aggravated child sexually abusive activity, each carrying a 25-year sentence, along with four counts of using a computer to commit a crime, which can result in 20 years to life in prison.
His next court hearing is scheduled for Thursday, October 3rd in the 67th District Court in Flint, with bond set at $300,000.
GHOST cracks the case: sextortion leads to shocking discovery.
The investigation initially started as a sextortion case in Clio, Michigan. Deputies received Klinert’s consent to search his phone, where they discovered 34 images of child pornography. A forensic analysis of his phone led officers to build their case, uncovering more details about Klinert’s illegal use of AI technologies.
New crime, new challenges: AI presents a legal gray area.
Because the explicit images Klinert created were AI-generated, the investigation faced new legal hurdles. With no clear “victim” in the traditional sense, finding the origins of the manipulated photos and proving their criminal nature took considerable effort. However, authorities were able to locate a victim whose image Klinert had altered using AI.
According to Swanson, this is their first case involving AI child pornography but he is pleased that their county prosecutor is on board with holding people accountable for what he called a “groundbreaking” case. He said they will all learn as they go as AI is “here to say” including people possibly starting businesses and working to monetize this type of activity.
GHOST’s forensic expert, Sgt. Tori Dallas said at the press conference that she wants predators to know that their team is coming after them. She said, “Technology is going to change and the commitment to protect our children and those vulnerable, that is not going to change. So as long as you keep progressing, so are we. And thankfully we have those tools that allow us to do that.”
A warning to parents: protect your kids’ online presence.
Sgt. Tori Dallas issued a stark warning to parents, urging them to take inventory of their children’s online images because predators like Klinert are constantly on the lookout for photos they can manipulate using AI technologies. “Stop feeding them (predators),” Dallas said. She went on to warn that posting ‘first day of school’ photos publicly may seem harmless, but it could be all a criminal needs to feed those photos into porn generators.
The GHOST task force, created to fight human trafficking and the exploitation of vulnerable individuals and children, will continue to work with prosecutors to bring Klinert to justice. Authorities believe that as AI technologies evolve, they will become an increasingly common tool for predators – unless law enforcement can keep up with the pace of change.
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I assume it will be eventually possible to produce child porn with AI without the need for sourcing real pictures.
Pennsylvania teen recently arrested for taking classmates yearbook photos and using AI to turn them into nudies.
It’s that way now. Real photos aren’t necessary...........
We are in bizarro world.
There is a lot of what I’d call garbage available out there that I have no desire to watch and I am sure that this garbage would be at or very near top of that list, but a victimless crime? Child porn is illegal because no one wants to see children abused or violated, much less for someone’s profit. But if there’s no child actually abused is it still child pornography? It’s sick, no doubt. But criminal? Maybe I could be convinced but I’m not sure I’m convinced yet. How is this distinguished from certain forms of art, or for that matter, immature sketches or scribbles in a notebook, the kind we all know immature teen and adults have been known to do?
We have too many laws on the books and so many of them are no longer based on there being actual victims, but rather they just criminalize behavior or even attitudes (hate crime, tell me how a judge or jury knows a persons heart). The crime is the act, not the thought about the act.
Is it any different than someone drawing or painting an image of child porn without referencing a real live person? How does the law treat that?
The prosecutors are swimming against the tide. Judges want a corpus delecti.
Also if he doesn’t actually distribute the photos to other people, and if it’s just for his personal use.
It could easily become a real slippery slope if they aren’t careful.
Well, we know the law could care less about a cross in a jar of piss, so we could start to extrapolate from there….
Leftist America uses its media glorify Satan.
I never even heard of "child porn" until I was 40 or 50 years old. It is so beyond the pale, completely beyond anything of which I thought a human was capable.
Need we even ask why America has fallen out of God's favor?
+1
A hate crime by any other name...
SCOTUS ruled such “manufactured” pictures were OK 6:years ago.
***...after allegedly using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate child pornography from photos of children found online.***
Was not there an attempt in the past to get child porn legalized by the SCOTUS If it was a cartoon under “Freedom of the Press” 1st Amendment? Would AI be the same?
Ever notice on Facebook the “Clips and short reels” seems to have a large number of underage girls strutting their stuff?
It appears the perverts are pushing kids younger and younger on the public.
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