Child abuse images removed from AI image-generator training source, researchers say
Washington (AP): Artificial intelligence researchers have said they deleted more than 2,000 web links to suspected child sexual abuse imagery from a dataset used to train popular AI image-generator tools.
The LAION research dataset is a huge index of online images and captions that's been a source for leading AI image-makers such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney.
But a report last year by the Stanford Internet Observatory found it contained links to sexually explicit images of children, contributing to the ease with which some AI tools have been able to produce photorealistic deepfakes that depict children.
That December report led LAION, which stands for the nonprofit Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Open Network, to immediately remove its dataset. Eight months later, LAION said in a blog post on Friday that it worked with the Stanford University watchdog group and anti-abuse organisations in Canada and the United Kingdom to fix the problem and release a cleaned-up dataset for future AI research.
Stanford researcher David Thiel, author of the December report, commended LAION for significant improvements but said the next step is to withdraw from distribution the “tainted models” that are still able to produce child abuse imagery.
One of the LAION-based tools that Stanford identified as the “most popular model for generating explicit imagery” - an older and lightly filtered version of Stable Diffusion - remained easily accessible until Thursday, when the New York-based company Runway ML removed it from the AI model repository Hugging Face. Runway said in a statement Friday it was a “planned deprecation of research models and code that have not been actively maintained”.
The cleaned-up version of the LAION dataset comes as governments around the world are taking a closer look at how some tech tools are being used to make or distribute illegal images of children.
San Francisco's city attorney earlier this month filed a lawsuit seeking to shut down a group of websites that enable the creation of AI-generated nudes of women and girls. The alleged distribution of child sexual abuse images on the messaging app Telegram is part of what led French authorities to bring charges on Wednesday against the platform's founder and CEO, Pavel Durov.
Durov's arrest “signals a really big change in the whole tech industry that the founders of these platforms can be held personally responsible,” said David Evan Harris, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley who recently reached out to Runway asking about why the problematic AI image-generator was still publicly accessible. It was taken down days later.
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Young advocates urge Chief Justice of India to reconsider transfer of Karnataka High Court judges
Bengaluru: A group of over 200 young advocates practicing before the Karnataka High Court have submitted a formal representation to the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India, expressing concern over the proposed transfer of certain sitting judges of the High Court.
In a letter addressed to the Chief Justice, the junior members of the Bar have appealed for a reconsideration of the transfers, describing the judges in question as respected figures known for their fairness, judicial discipline, and support for young lawyers. According to the advocates, these judges have consistently fostered courtroom environments that are patient, merit-focused, and encouraging for those in the early stages of their legal careers.
The signatories expressed particular concern about the absence of a stated rationale for the proposed transfers, especially given the integrity, impartiality, and judicial efficiency demonstrated by the judges in question. They emphasized that while judicial transfers are administrative decisions, they have a profound impact on the morale of the legal community, particularly on young practitioners.
While fully respecting the authority and wisdom of the Hon'ble Collegium, the advocates clarified that their representation is not a critique but a sincere appeal from those who have directly benefited from the conducive judicial atmosphere created by the concerned judges. They stressed the need for transparency in such decisions and urged that the perspective of the younger generation of lawyers be given due consideration.
The representation concludes with an appeal to safeguard the ideals of judicial independence, consistency, and public trust in the judiciary.
