[JKCalhoun]

While disgusting, I'm thinking that if the courts insist on allowing this, I can try and comfort myself with this thought: I don't doubt that if you find one "AI CSAM" image on someone's drive, keep digging — you'll find illegal stuff too.

Sick people will still go to jail.

[themaninthedark]

Usually when someone is arrested for this kind of thing it's not one image but a couple thousand so you are right.

Edit add:

I have mixed feeling about this...Let me preface by saying that child abuse is abhorrent.

One of my former coworkers was arrested for possession of CSAM...he was never charged or accused of any abuse. I wasn't close to him; he was quiet and went out of his way to help. He (probably)killed himself(young, died suddenly) last week ahead of his trial.

So I have to wonder would having something like this help him and protect kids as well? Or does possession lead to abuse?

I don't know...people have problems and are sick. At what point do we write them off as irredeemable?

[JKCalhoun]

I know. I am aware of a man who abused some of my friends — also committed suicide before trial. By all accounts, most of the boys (who were from broken homes, FWIW) thought of him as a father figure and were not eager to see him prosecuted — shocked when they learned of the suicide.

A friend of the family tried to molest me when I was young. A quick search on the internet shows he kept at it (arrest records across decades abound). So, yeah, this kind of sick person kind of stays sick.

[themaninthedark]

Man that sucks. Sorry.

Not sure what else to say....

I hate the idea of permanently broken people but I also know that not everything is fixable.