Olives @olives@qoto.org

We noticed #AI related matters can be a spot to peddle anti-porn pseudo-science. For the past half year or so, I've kept an eye on some discourse. Generally speaking, I don't deal in individual arguments, I deal in general rules. I'm not commenting on copyright, privacy, or anything else here, including the possibility someone might clone Sam's blog. If that's your problem, it's going to do fuck all about that.

Rather than spend much of my time conjuring up lengthy takes, I'll refer to a copy of my new porn science post (more after that quote):

Despite the scant / non-existent evidence for porn being such a bogeyman, it keeps getting cast as a scapegoat which is quite frustrating, so I am going to have to go over this... Again.

Even if online porn "might" be "problematic" to someone out there, it would not be anywhere remotely near proportionate to engage in censorship (or privacy intrusive measures, which among other things might pose a security risk), especially as it can be free expression to someone, and expression which someone might casually share as part of their more general interaction / engagement with others.

Sometimes, restrictions can lead to services becoming inaccessible entirely, rather than simply limiting them to people over a particular age.

A typical recommendation is sex education (perhaps, teach someone about respecting others boundaries?), not censorship (which is harmful in it's own ways). I don't mean criticizing someone for telling an offensive joke.

The science isn't really showing porn is this awful thing:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2015.1023427
https://psyarxiv.com/ehqgv/
Two studies showing porn is not associated with sexism. One carried out by German scientists, another carried out by Canadians.

https://qoto.org/@olives/110462274531891870
American scientists carried out a meta analysis of 59 studies. They found porn isn't associated with crime. A meta analysis is a study where someone studies studies.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31432547/
Nor does it necessarily seem this is the case among adolescents (the meta analysis also points to that). Here, the minors who used more porn engaged in less sexual aggression.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201601/evidence-mounts-more-porn-less-sexual-assault
https://qoto.org/@olives/110400288665794817
There are even studies (across the United States, Japan, Finland, and more) showing that porn is associated with less crime, even among criminals.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31042055/
While an older Dutch study showed there might be worse levels of "sexual satisfaction" among adolescents using porn, a Croatian lab failed to replicate that.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563222001637
This is a meta analysis on sexualization in video games. It finds that studies tend to pick cut-offs where it's difficult to distinguish signal from noise. This increases the number of false positives.

There are also results which contradict the theory of sexualization being harmful. In the end, it fails to find a link between this and sexism, and this and mental well-being.

I'm also usually sceptical of apparent links, as the "scientific pile on effect" (as one described it) drives people to go looking for "links" between porn and "something bad" however tenuous it might be, or methodologically flawed an approach it might be (and later, that something is debunked, or the "link" is a phantom due to methodological limitations).

I could add it doesn't matter if they're "child-like" or "fictional children", (this is far, far more likely to hit someone good than someone bad who don't need it, and a bad actor could still do bad things)*. This necessarily excludes involvement of abuse or invasions of privacy. If it were actual real children, I'd oppose that on ethical grounds (though, I still wouldn't want to burn down the Internet / sites, because of unwanted bad actors). This is covered above but it is also kind of common internet sense.

While I'm not making a point about anything in particular, to inoculate you against potential problematic arguments, it's worth mentioning the basic precept that correlation does not imply causation.

Let's use ice cream as an example. Everyone loves ice cream, right? Well, I like ice cream. This also happens to be used as a classic example by others for this sort of thing.

Anyway, ice cream is correlated with crime. No one would say ice cream causes people to go out and commit crimes though. Just because there is a "correlation" doesn't mean it is meaningful. And that's not the only way in which correlation might not imply causation. For instance, warm weather is a far more compelling explanation for this phenomena. That might come in useful somewhere...

Here's a couple which were added for auspol:

https://reason.com/2015/07/23/despite-all-the-panic-millennial-teens-h/ U.S. data shows teens are having less sex with each other (in a world with more porn).

Misapprehensions about porn can be more about expressions of sexual orientations than porn. In fact, we've seen an Australian news outlet specifically singling out "anal sex" as a negative thing not that long ago, who would that disproportionately impact? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29702013/ Also, moralizing can be harmful (and ineffective).

Typically, responsibility is put on individuals to behave in a manner that is reasonable to them, instead of looking for a scapegoat whenever someone behaves in a manner which could be argued to be negative. This isn't to discount external factors (i.e. socioeconomic ones) entirely but there isn't always something sensible which can be done. People live their own lives.

We might also want to look at how alcohol is handled. We tend to look at this through the lens of personal responsibly, that someone is reasonable for consuming it responsibly, and not behaving inappropriately. Now, alcohol is not the same thing as porn, it is an actual substance, not some pixels on the screen. It further illustrates though how strange and unusual the idea of censorship here is.

Quite a few things which might get blamed on "the porn" are actually general mental health issues which could be dealt with more normally, and crucially, without conflating it with porn (which might even detract from dealing with someone's actual issues).

In fact, online censorship has increased in quite a few ways over the past few years and it doesn't appear to be any sort of panacea. It has, however, created a number of harms in it's own right, including even murder by practically forcing some sex workers to work with more dangerous clients. It also provides a space for abusive bigots to dwell in.

An addendum (from another post which might be useful to add useful context, we won't delve too deeply into this section):

An additional bit on why "porn censorship" (perhaps, even some themes) is bad.

Some points about censoring fictional content there (censorship is a bad idea):

It might fuel someone's persecution complex, especially in the context of *. The idea of a dangerous world where people are out to get them. Feeds anxiety, alienation. It's happened a fair bit. It doesn't seem to do anything positive.

Someone might be more inclined to see someone as an idiot or crazy (that's not wrong, lol). In any case, it poisons the well as someone is not seen to be credible or competent in these matters at all. Promoting distrust doesn't seem like a positive outcome.

It violates someone's free expression. People have these things called rights, that's important. This point comes from the original post, I'm aware I've covered this here more generally, still there may be value in reaffirming it.

Bad people don't need it. They could still do bad things. Good people are who'd suffer.

It violates the Constitution. Multiple constitutions.

Punishing someone because they resemble someone unpleasant isn't good. Also, due process still applies, in any case...

Can be a coping mechanism.

End quote of new porn science post.

Now, I need a drink. Okay, I'm kidding there. But, really, I don't have time for this or the patience. It's not even a new argument. It's the same argument. A tired one. Why did I put this after? When building a building, you require a foundation.

If you've been following my posts for any length of time, you already know I have more to say than that :)

"There is also a bit of appeal to the stigmatizing and pseudo-scientific concept of "deviance". It's a lazy approach where someone tries to conflate a bunch of random sexual phenomena in a vain attempt to try to demonize it all. It's an attempt to remove nuance from complex discussions."

For instance, I've specifically criticized that. As Dr. Lehmiller points out(1,2,3), dark fantasies are actually pretty common and not even abnormal. Even if they weren't, it would still be lazy and harmful to stigmatize them on that basis.

As a rule of thumb, if a take feels like it's gone down the lanes of QAnon, focusing overly or exclusively on wicked people as if no one else exists in the world. It probably is.

1 https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-myths-sex/202003/why-are-rape-fantasies-so-common Why Are "Rape Fantasies" So Common?

2 https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-myths-of-sex/202212/why-animated-porn-is-so-popular Why Animated Porn Is So Popular

3 https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-myths-sex/201911/our-7-most-common-sexual-fantasies Our 7 Most Common Sexual Fantasies

I see someone from Finland complaining about the new government. Appears to be more right wing.

That's kind of a shame, it's not everyday you see a Prime Minister who likes to party.

Did you know there are a couple of "think of the children" groups which will define teens sharing porn with each other as "abuse"? Keep an eye on those definitions.

One appears to be from India. The other from the U.K. and run by a former cop.

I think it's interesting to think about all the little ways in which they nudge things though to get particular figures.

Maybe, this example is less interesting right now, but maybe something similar might crop up in a different context.

Theoretically, that is supposed to be an issue for Jeremy to deal with. These kinds of activists aren't known to be truthful.

I'll comment on it, if it intersects with something more relevant to me.

We've always known that "think of the children" people are known to bend the truth though. A notorious example being wildly inflated figures on sex trafficking which some attribute as a driver for laws against prostitution.

It would also be argued that these laws actually make people less safe.

Sometimes, I wonder how anyone can take a survey seriously which has a composite question which includes actual child porn and other irrelevant things in *one question* then tries to argue some sort of correlation with something.

Alright, I'll avoid commenting on that one.

https://www.wired.com/story/911-s5-botnet-arrest/ Interesting. Like Wired, I hope no one was falsely accused of committing a crime over it.

Also, to be even clearer, if it involves abuse, maybe a piece of content is a derivative of a piece of it, then that is also prohibited (18 U.S.C. 2256). From what I've heard, it would likely require some element of intent.

From what I've seen within the United States, virtually every case where some "sexual depiction of imaginary children" (excuse me for the jargon, I don't like jargon myself) has turned up at court involved people who the police were already charging for committing some other crime.

This isn't because the police aren't investigating either. The police have lost interest many times when it came to light that it is just that. It is also well-known that trying that would violate the First Amendment.

The First Amendment has even been said to have been brought up. The federal government even publicly admitted last year that it is generally protected by the First Amendment.

Legal scholars from Stanford also noted this year that if it were brought up in court, it would likely fail to pass muster.

Other than that, it's just not effective at combatting crime and wastes time which could be spent on real criminals.

While someone doesn't seem to like the point, the point that a few inputs (i.e. people) are unlikely to have a material difference on the outputs of a model remains.

If someone wants to make a copyright or privacy argument, they're free to, but I'm wary of making exaggerations here when that could lead to unintended consequences.

For the record, OpenAI is specifically worse with that, although it is also more restrictive. It's hard to say why. It could be that whatever architecture they use to appear more sophisticated is more prone to this.

In fact, I don't agree with everything that Dr. Tenbergen says, but at least she actually took the time to do a study, and has some years of experience. If she says something interesting, then I might listen.

But, the "AI ethicist" or the "image analysis guy" is not much better than consulting Gary the computer technician about something he hardly knows about.

If someone actually studied it, and they had a bad take, maybe assuming too much bad, then that might be one thing, but you have these people who don't actually know a whole lot (and haven't touched the field) who get consulted as if they have an defining opinion on the matter.

For whatever reason, they keep finding people with hot takes about porn but who don't actually study porn effects, instead they hear something alarming and they decide to echo it.

A guy who has knowledge in analysing images or data is not an expert in sexology.

It might be a step up over an "#AI ethics" person with hot takes about offensive content but their opinion is worth a lot less than someone might make out.

Talking about Sam could be the subject of a long article in itself and I don't have the time or desire to do so.

I don't think you need to be an expert in the human mind to realize that an opt-out for Microsoft Recall is going to lead to a lot of people getting tripped up by it in a sensitive situation (perhaps, one involving security).

If it is going to be there at all, this should be an opt-in instead.

I'm also wondering whether it shouldn't be implemented in some other way, and if there shouldn't be some API or something for a program to opt out of it? #privacy

From what I've heard of it, Microsoft's Recall product is very troublesome from a security perspective.