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Jesus, You love the little children. We pray that You would protect our kids. Reign in artificial intelligence and guard our children!
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AI is affecting every aspect of our lives. Now, it is being used to harm children. What can be done to protect our kids?

From The Epoch Times. With children spending an increasing amount of time on the internet and many uploading photos to their social media accounts, sexual predators continue to steal these images to produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

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Further compounding the proliferation of CSAM is the easy access to artificial intelligence (AI), and law enforcement agencies and child protective organizations are seeing a dramatic rise in AI-generated CSAM.

Yaron Litwin is a digital safety expert and chief marketing officer at Netspark, the company behind a program called CaseScan that identifies AI-generated CSAM online, aiding law enforcement agencies in their investigations.

Mr. Litwin told The Epoch Times he recommends that parents and teens not post photos on any public forum and that parents talk to their children about the potential dangers of revealing personal information online. …

Exploitative Content Expanding

The amount of CSAM online has gone up exponentially since generative AI became mainstream at the start of 2023, Mr. Litwin said. The problem is serious enough that all 50 states have asked Congress to institute a commission to study the problem of AI-generated CSAM, he said.

“There’s definitely a correlation between the increase in AI-generated CSAM and when OpenAI and DALL-E and all these generative AI-type platforms launched,” Mr. Litwin said. …

Mr. Litwin said that to really protect children from online predators, it is important for parents and guardians to clearly discuss the potential dangers of posting photos and talking to strangers online. …

Dangers of Generative AI

Roo Powell, founder of Safe from Online Sex Abuse (SOSA), told The Epoch Times that because predators can use the image of a fully-clothed child to create an explicit image using AI, it is best not to post any images of children online, even as toddlers, she said.

“At SOSA, we encourage parents not to publicly share images or videos of their children in diapers or having a bath. Even though their genitals may technically be covered, perpetrators can save this content for their own gratification, or can use AI to make it explicit and then share that widely,” Ms. Powell said in an email. …

AI-generated CSAM is produced much more quickly than conventional images, subsequently inundating law enforcement with even more abuse referrals, and experts in the AI and online parental control space expect the problem to only get worse.

In other cases, the AI-generated CSAM image could be created from a photo taken of a real-life child’s social media account, which is altered to be sexually explicit and thus endangers those otherwise unvictimized children, as well as their parents. …

Studies have shown a link between viewing CSAM and sexually abusing children in real life.

Sextortion on the Rise

Because of how realistic it is, AI-generated CSAM is facilitating a rise in cases of sextortion.

Sextortion occurs when a predator pretends to be a young person to solicit semi- or fully-nude images from a victim and then extorts money or sexual acts from them under threat of making their images public. …

In one case, Mr. Litwin said a teenage weightlifting enthusiast posted a shirtless selfie that was then used by a criminal to create an AI-generated nude photo of him to extort money from the minor.

In other cases, the perpetrator might threaten to disclose the image, damaging the minor’s reputation.  Faced with such a threat, many teens comply with the criminal’s demands or end up taking their own lives rather than risk public humiliation.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) operates the CyberTipLine, where citizens can report child sexual exploitation on the internet. In 2022, the tip line received over 32 million reports of CSAM. Although some of the reports are made multiple times about a single viral child sex abuse image, that is still an 82 percent increase from 2021, or close to 87,000 reports per day.

In December 2022, the FBI estimated 3,000 minor sextortion victims. …

Using Good AI to Fight Bad AI

Prior to the wide availability of AI, editing and generating images required skills and knowledge of image editing software programs. However, AI has made it so quick and easy that even amateur users can generate life-like images.

Netspark is leading the fight against AI-generated CSAM with CaseScan, its own AI-powered cyber safety tool, said Mr. Litwin. …

Law enforcement agencies must go through massive amounts of images each day and are often unable to get through all of the CSAM reports in a timely manner, said Mr. Litwin, but this is exactly where CaseScan is able to assist investigators.

Unless the police departments are using AI-centered solutions, police spend an extensive amount of time assessing if the child in a photo is a fake AI-generated or an actual sexual abuse victim. …

Mr. Litwin said CaseScan has enabled investigators to significantly reduce the amount time it takes to identify AI-generated CSAM and lighten the mental impact on investigators who usually must view the images.

Tech Companies Must Do More

Ms. Powell said social media companies need to do more in the fight against CSAM.

“To effectively help protect kids and teens, Congress can mandate that social media platforms implement effective content moderation systems that identify cases of child abuse and exploitation and escalate those to law enforcement as needed,” she said.

“Congress can also require all social media platforms to create parental control features to help mitigate the risk of online predation. These can include the ability for a parent user to turn off all chat/messaging features, restrict who’s following their child, and manage screen time on the app,” she added. …

How are you praying about the growth of AI in our culture?

(Excerpt from The Epoch Times. Photo Credit: metamorworks/Getty Images)

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Michael
September 14, 2023

Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we curse this AI targeting Children! We rebuke the devourer from which it came. Lord strike their servers with lightning, let the hard drives self destruct. Cause the electrical supplies to fail! May the computers servicing this AI become a haunt for jackals; may they cost the guilty ones more money than they’re worth! Deliver your children from Satan’s agenda and let a plumbline of righteousness and justice re-orient everything these evildoers are trying to do in Christ’s Name!

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Peg B
September 14, 2023

Heavenly Father, we turn to Your all-powerful words of truth and promises and take our stand in them. We press into You even now for our children and grandchildren. Psalms 32:7 You are a hiding place for me; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah. Oh LORD, we speak these truths over every child and every teen. We believe in Your protection and love, which does not fail. At the prompting of Holy Spirit we will call upon Your name, draw near to Your throne and make our requests known to You. With shout of acclamation, we give You all praise and glory for the victory in You and the tearing down of this wicked stronghold. Let every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD. Amen.

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Sarah Brown
September 14, 2023

Lord God and Savior, we pray that children not be given phones at vulnerable ages. May we give them our time to help them answer their questions with a Bible in our hands. We ask that parents will help their lids navigate the internet with wisdom and supervision.

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