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Mara Wilson Warns AI Is Supercharging Child Image Abuse After Revealing Her ‘Living Nightmare’

Her essay links her childhood exploitation to today’s easy-to-use image generators that can target any child.

Overview

  • Wilson detailed in a Jan. 17 Guardian essay that her childhood photos were posted on fetish sites and Photoshopped into pornography, which she described as a painful, violating ordeal.
  • She argues generative AI now enables realistic explicit images of real people, saying it is infinitely easier for children whose faces appear online to be sexually exploited.
  • Coverage on Jan. 18–19 amplified her warning and centered her call for action from lawmakers, platforms, and AI developers.
  • She cited a recent case in which X’s Grok tool was asked to strip clothing from images of 14-year-old Stranger Things actor Nell Fisher, after which the company said it would block Grok from editing images of real people in revealing clothing.
  • Wilson urges enforceable legislation, technical safeguards, and platform accountability, and she advises parents to recognize that shared photos of children can be repurposed into synthetic CSAM.