An AI Image Generator’s Exposed Database Reveals What People Really Used It For

Tens of thousands of explicit AI-generated images, including AI-generated child sexual abuse material, were left open and accessible to anyone on the internet, according to new research seen by WIRED. An open database belonging to an AI image-generation firm contained more than 95,000 records, including some prompt data and images of celebrities such as Ariana Grande, the Kardashians, and Beyoncé de-aged to look like children. The exposed data provides a glimpse at how AI image-generation tools can be weaponized to create deeply harmful and likely nonconsensual sexual content of adults and child sexual abuse material. “This example also shows—yet again—the disturbing extent to which there is a market for AI that enables such abusive images to be generated,” says Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University in the UK who specializes in online- and image-based abuse.