Some More News Even More News: Will Democrats Actually Try To Defund DHS?
Jan 30, 2026
Mara Wilson, writer and former child actor, discusses her Guardian piece about AI-generated child sexual abuse material and the legal gaps around it. Short takes cover the role of big tech and open-source models, policy proposals to curb CSAM, and her experiences growing up in the industry. The conversation also pivots to DHS funding fights and debates over ICE reform.
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Open Source AI Scales Harms
- Mara Wilson warns open-source AI can enable mass production of CSAM by allowing bad actors to refine models.
- She says this makes previously rare harms scalable and much harder to control.
Protect Kids Online And Regulate Family Channels
- Mara Wilson urges parents to be careful about posting children online and to treat kid performers as child actors.
- She recommends demonetizing family channels and applying union protections to platform-performing children.
Training Filters Aren't Enough
- Mara Wilson notes even 'clean' AI vendors risk enabling abuse because combining images is functionally the same as manipulation.
- She highlights gaps like failure to exclude CSAM hashes from training sets.