TOKYO (Kyodo) — Three men and a woman have been arrested for allegedly selling via online auctions explicit posters featuring images of women created using generative artificial intelligence, with Tokyo police saying Tuesday it is the first time in Japan that such crime came to light.
Tomohiro Mizutani, a 44-year-old retail worker who lives in Aichi Prefecture, was among those arrested Monday on the charge of distributing and displaying obscene objects to unspecified buyers.
The charge is related specifically to transactions in October, but Mizutani is believed to have racked up 10 million yen ($70,000) in sales over approximately a year.
Of the four suspects, aged between their 20s and 50s, Mizutani and two others have admitted to the allegations, saying they used AI to “make money easily.”
The other accused person has denied some of the allegations, according to the Metropolitan Police Department’s safety section.
The four used generative AI software available free on the internet to create explicit images of women, instructing the technology to produce images of the figures in certain poses and situations.
They pitched the posters as “AI beauty,” selling them for several thousand yen each.
Apparently to avoid being banned from selling the items, the suspects displayed posters with censored images in the online auctions. However, they shipped uncensored versions to customers.
The alleged crimes were detected when the police were conducting cyber patrols, they said.
Countries are stepping up efforts to regulate and crack down on AI-generated graphic images and videos known as “deepfake pornography.” The issue gained worldwide attention last year when explicit deepfakes featuring superstar American singer Taylor Swift went viral.
In Japan, there are no laws clearly restricting pornographic deepfake images, according to the Children and Families Agency.
But a local assembly in Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, passed in March an ordinance banning the creation and provision of deepfake pornography as part of efforts to protect minors from sexual abuse.
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