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It's hard to have a nuanced discussion because the article is so vague. It's not clear what he's specifically been charged with (beyond "obscenity," not a specific child abuse statute?). Because any simulated CSAM laws have been, to my knowledge, all struck down when challenged.
I completely get the "lock them all up and throw away the key" visceral reaction - I feel that too, for sure - but this is a much more difficult question. There are porn actors over 18 who look younger, do the laws outlaw them from work that would be legal for others who just look older? If AI was trained exclusively on those over-18 people, would outputs then not be CSAM even if the images produced features that looked under 18?
I'm at least all for a "fruit of the poisoned tree" theory - if AI model training data sets include actual CSAM then they can and should be made illegal. Deepfaking intentionally real under 18 people is also not black and white (looking again to the harm factor), but also I think it can be justifiably prohibited. I also think distribution of completely fake CSAM can be arguably outlawed (the situation here), since it's going to be impossible to tell AI from real imagery soon and allowing that would undermine enforcement of vital anti-real-CSAM laws.
The real hard case is producing and retaining fully fake people and without real CSAM in training data, solely locally (possession crimes). That's really tough. Because not only does it not directly hurt anyone in its creation, there's a possible benefit in that it diminishes the market for real CSAM (potentially saving unrelated children from the abuse flowing from that demand), and could also divert the impulse of the producer from preying on children around them due to unfulfilled desire.
Could, because I don't think there's studies that answers whether those are true.
I mostly agree with you, but a counterpoint:
Downloading and possession of CSAM seems to be a common first step in a person initiating communication with a minor with the intent to meet up and abuse them. I've read many articles over the years about men getting arrested for trying to meet up with minors, and one thing that shows up pretty often in these articles is the perpetrator admitting to downloading CSAM for years until deciding the fantasy wasn't enough anymore. They become comfortable enough with it that it loses its taboo and they feel emboldened to take the next step.
CSAM possession is illegal because possession directly supports creation, and creation is inherently abusive and exploitative of real people, and generating it from a model that was trained on non-abusive content probably isn't exploitative, but there's a legitimate question as to whether we as a society decide it's associated closely enough with real world harms that it should be banned.
Not an easy question for sure, and it's one that deserves to be answered using empirical data, but I imagine the vast majority of Americans would flatly reject a nuanced view on this issue.
To expound on this: prior to this point, the creation of CSAM requires that children be sexually exploited. You could not have CSAM without children being harmed. But what about when no direct harms have occurred? Is lolicon hentai 'obscene'? Well, according to the law and case law, yes, but it's not usually enforced. If we agree that drawings of children engaged in sexual acts aren't causing direct harm--that is, children are not being sexually abused in order to create the drawings--then how much different is a computer-generated image that isn't based off any specific person or event? It seem to me that, whether or not a pedophile might decide that they eventually want more than LLM-generated images is not relevant. Treating a future possibility as a foregone conclusion is exactly the rationale behind Reefer Madness and the idea of 'gateway' drugs.
Allow me to float a second possibility that will certainly be less popular.
Start with two premises: first, pedophilia is a characteristic that appears to be an orientation. That is, a true pedophile--a person exclusively sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children--does not choose to be a pedophile, any more than a person chooses to be gay. (My understanding is that very few pedophiles are exclusively pedophilic though, and that many child molesters are opportunistic sexual predators rather than being pedophiles.) Secondly, the rates of sexual assault appear to have decreased as pornography availability has increased. So the question I would have is, would wide availability of LLM-generated CSAM--CSAM that didn't cause any real, direct harm to children--actually decrease rates of child sexual assault?
With regards to your last paragraph: Pedophiles can indeed by straight, gay or bi. Pedophiles may also not become molesters, and molesters of children may not at all be pedophilic. It's seems you understand this. I mentioned ITT that I read a newspaper article many years ago that was commissioned to show the access to cp would increase child abuse, it seemed to show the opposite.
If persons could use AI to generate their own porn of their own personal fantasies (whatever those might be) and NOT share that content what then? Canada allows this for text (maybe certain visuals? Audio? IDK). I don't know about current 'obscene' laws in the USA, however, I do recall reading about an art exhibit in NY which featured an upside down urinal that was deemed obscene, than later deemed a work or art. I also recall seeing (via an internet image) a sculpture of what seemed to be a circle of children with penises as noses. Porn? Art? Comedy?
My understanding was that 'pure' pedophiles--ones that have no interest at all in post-pubescent children or any adults whatsoever--tend to be less concerned with sex/gender, particularly because children don't have defined secondary sex characteristics. I don't know if this is actually correct though. I'm not even sure how you could ethically research that kind of thing and end up with valid results.
And honestly, not being able to do solid research that has valid results makes it really fuckin' hard to find solutions that work to prevent as many children from being harmed as possible. In the US at least research about sex and sexuality in general-much less deviant sexualities--seems to be taboo, and very difficult to get funding for.