For years, hashing technology has made it possible for platforms to automatically detect known child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) to stop kids from being retraumatized online. However, rapidly detecting new or unknown CSAM remained a bigger challenge for platforms as new victims continued to be victimized. Now, AI may be ready to change that.
Today, a prominent child safety organization, Thorn, in partnership with a leading cloud-based AI solutions provider, Hive, announced the release of an API expanding access to an AI model designed to flag unknown CSAM. It's the earliest use of AI technology striving to expose unreported CSAM at scale.
An expansion of Thorn's CSAM detection tool, Safer, the AI feature uses "advanced machine learning (ML) classification models" to "detect new or previously unreported CSAM," generating a "risk score to make human decisions easier and faster."