NEWS

Authored by Margaret Spellings via RealClear Wire,

Proposed changes to the U.S. citizenship exam have renewed the question of how many natural-born American citizens could pass this basic civics test. The troubling answer is that one in three can’t. Healthy democracy requires not only popular participation but an understanding of who we are, where we came from, and how and why our system of government functions the way it does. 

For years, I, along with other former (more…)

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told a financial conference in New York on Monday that people who assume that the U.S. economy will continue to boom for years on the back of consumer strength are making "a huge mistake."

Mr. Dimon made the remarks at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference on Sept. 11, at which he warned of a number of risks to the economy, including the Ukraine war, monetary (more…)

Authored by Masooma Haq via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

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).

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.

“One of our recommendations is to be a little more cautious with images that are being posted online and really try to keep those within closed networks, where there are only people that you know,” Mr. Litwin said.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry said in 2020 that on average, children ages 8 to 12 spend four to six hours a day watching or using screens, and teens spend up to 9 hours a day on their devices.

Parents Together, a nongovernmental organization that provides news about issues affecting families, released a report in 2023 (pdf) stating that "despite the bad and worsening risks of online sexual exploitation, 97% of children use social media and the internet every day, and 1 in 5 use it 'almost constantly.'"

One of Netspark’s safety tools is Canopy, an AI-powered tool that gives parents control to filter out harmful sexual digital content for their minor children, said Mr. Litwin, while giving children freedom to explore the internet.

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.

The FBI recently warned the public about the rise of AI-generated sexual abuse materials.

“Malicious actors use content manipulation technologies and services to exploit photos and videos—typically captured from an individual’s social media account, open internet, or requested from the victim—into sexually-themed images that appear true-to-life in likeness to a victim, then circulate them on social media, public forums, or pornographic websites,” said the FBI in a recent statement.

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.

“So just really communicating with our kids about some of these risks and explaining to them that this might happen and making sure that they're aware,” he said.

An artificial intelligence (AI) logo blended with four fake Twitter accounts bearing profile pictures apparently generated by artificial intelligence software taken in Helsinki, Finland, on June 12, 2023. (Olivier Morin/AFP via Getty Images)

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 (more…)