>the economic incentives currently in place to harm children
I really do not believe in that. There isn't a single person in the world who chooses to be a child pornographer because the economics of it are good. They do it because it allows them to carry out their sexual fantasies, which are about abusing children. The abuse has to be the point, if it weren't just abstaining from it would be the only choice.
It is extremely easy to comprehend that your sexual urges (which can be satisfied in a myriad ways) are monumentally less important than a childs wellbeing. Choosing your urges means that you are doing it because of the abuse, which of course any virtual recreation can not provide.
>obviously creates predators as more people are exposed. (from your earlier comment)
>There isn't a single person in the world
Is there any good research to back these up? Societies have had similar lines of reasoning involving prohibition and banning in the past that seemed "obviously" intuitively correct, some of which have been mentioned already by others.
As mentioned by someone else, CP is "radioactive," and as such, in a black market would probably fetch an appropriate price. It's been an extensively studied and observable behavior that people can, and will partake in unethical or immoral activities if the economic incentive is high enough. It's not an either-or thing; it can be about the abuse, but it can also be about money, or even just a lack of empathy. The "lesser" crime of CP distribution doesn't necessarily have to be about the abuse either; people can find themselves in crime rings out of desperation, or coercion.
If realistic AI-gen CP can greatly devalue the real stuff, the risk would become much less worth it, except for the types of people you specifically mention. As I mentioned in another comment, it's possible to train and generate victimless synthetic CP -- AI learns concepts, similar to how a human artist might piece together concepts to create something they've never seen before.
The idea that virtual content can't provide some sort of catharsis or outlet for at least some people is also questionable, unless we can get a significant number of actual pedophiles to come and testify to this. People already find outlets in acting out any number of emotional, sex, or abuse fantasies via text LLMs, despite it being only text. And generative AI is becoming increasingly realistic, including audio and video domains, even if it's disturbing to think about.
There is evidence to support that pedophilia is to some extent a result of biology and uncontrollable life circumstance, and there are non-offending pedophile support groups, so avoiding abuse crimes is a choice for a significant non-zero portion of pedophiles.
I really do not believe in that. There isn't a single person in the world who chooses to be a child pornographer because the economics of it are good. They do it because it allows them to carry out their sexual fantasies, which are about abusing children. The abuse has to be the point, if it weren't just abstaining from it would be the only choice.
It is extremely easy to comprehend that your sexual urges (which can be satisfied in a myriad ways) are monumentally less important than a childs wellbeing. Choosing your urges means that you are doing it because of the abuse, which of course any virtual recreation can not provide.