The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) drew attention to a frightening practice used by pedophiles. A handbook is circulating on the dark web that teaches criminals how to generate nude images of clothed children using artificial intelligence (AI), the Guardian reports.
According to the foundation dealing with child abuse, pedophiles do not stop there, but blackmail children with images taken with AI in order to extort even more extreme material from them.
“This is the first evidence that perpetrators advise and encourage each other to use AI technology for these purposes,” the IWF said.
The charity, which searches for and removes material related to the sexual abuse of children from the Internet, drew attention to the increase in cases of blackmail already last year. The blackmailers manipulated the underwear photos obtained from the children and created content that IWF said was stunningly realistic.
The author of the nearly two-hundred-page manual found on the dark web also wrote about successfully blackmailing thirteen-year-old girls, who then sent naked pictures of themselves. The IWF handed over the document to the UK’s National Crime Agency.
The IWF also said that 2023 was a very extreme year. They found more than 275,000 websites that showed sexual abuse of children. Among them, there was a record amount of category A material, which contained rape, sadism and bestiality, 62,000 pages with such content were found compared to 51,000 the previous year.
IWF found 2,401 images that children between the ages of three and six years of sexual abuse had taken of themselves under the influence of manipulation or threats. In these images, the abuse took place in domestic settings such as bedrooms and kitchens.
Tags: Pedophiles blackmail children nude images created artificial intelligence
