Justice Thomas too forecasted that “technology may evolve to the point where it becomes impossible to enforce actual child pornography laws because the Government cannot prove that certain pornographic images are of real children.” In his view, “if technological advances thwart prosecution of ‘unlawful speech,’ the Government may well have a compelling interest in barring or otherwise regulating some narrow category of ‘lawful speech’ in order to enforce effectively laws against pornography made through the abuse of real children.”

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      Yeah that’s almost exactly what the judge ruled. Possession is legal but production and distribution are illegal. You could have the code to a virus, but no you can’t write one.

      I don’t 100% follow the judge’s logic, but it’s a simple parallel.

      • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        I think distribution is actually a stronger claim. There is a lot of precedence on distribution of things that are otherwise covered under free speech.

        I’m not sure who could claim standing.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        That honestly makes absolutely zero sense…

        Transmitting it is illegal.

        If creating it is illegal (e.g hand drawn), it is impossible to possess it, and not have transmitted it. Either you created it, or transmitted it, and while maybe they can’t prove one or the other, you broke a law?

        • frongt@lemmy.zip
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          3 days ago

          Yes, but they have to prove it in court. I don’t think it really makes sense as is, and the laws should be changed.

            • Jarix@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              The world progresses faster than any bureaucratic entity.

              There was a trend a while back showing ancient laws still technically in effect that don’t make any sense at all in a modern world.

              Like this argument saying the laws [as they exist] may become impossible to enforce, it’s saying that the world has changed too much for the way we handle this.

              Which of course laws from 10/20/50/100 years ago may not be able to apply in a useful manner to AI technology that is massively rapidly advancing beyond our ability to control or even understand what’s even all possible with it as it evolves.

              That part of what this POS wrote shouldn’t be particularly news to anyone or even controversial.

              THAT part shouldn’t…