In a world where technology is often seen as a double-edged sword, it is heartening to see it being wielded as a weapon against one of society's most heinous crimes: child sexual abuse.
As reported by Fox News, the executive producer of "Sound of Freedom," Paul Hutchinson, has revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) tools are being deployed globally to identify and apprehend sex traffickers, and to rescue their young victims.
Hutchinson, a veteran of 70 undercover rescue missions spanning 15 countries, has collaborated with "black hat" hackers in this endeavor. These hackers, he explained, are highly skilled individuals who sometimes engage in illegal activities for noble causes. "The black hats. These guys are some of the best hackers anywhere. Some of them do highly illegal things for the right reasons, right? These are the guys who took down the Ashley Madison site and exposed all the guys who were cheating on their wives," Hutchinson stated.
This collaboration has led to the creation of an AI software capable of identifying potential instances of child pornography on the dark web and other obscure corners of the internet, where criminals often believe they are anonymous. Hutchinson explained the software's operation, saying, "What these guys aren't thinking is the fact that once they have those things on their computer, and they're part of a file-sharing network, this software can go in there and say, hey, I'm looking for this XYZ video of this child rape video, right? And boom, their computer is showing, hey, have that one too."
The software can then reveal a global identifier number unique to each computer, not hidden by encrypted connections like a VPN. This allows the hackers to track when and where the computer goes online. "This one piece of software in one month in the United States identified 800,000 unique individuals who downloaded one or more child rape videos. That's a huge number. And that's just what this thing caught," Hutchinson disclosed.
The producer of "Sound of Freedom" highlighted the gravity of this issue, pointing to the addictive cycle that ensnares individuals who consume large quantities of pornography. "That addiction for some of them ended up being like any drug addiction where you needed something harder to have that same fix. For some, harder was a little bit, you know, maybe rape videos or whatever. For some of them, harder was a little bit younger," he noted.
Hutchinson warned that this addiction could lead individuals to act out horrific fantasies they wouldn't have found attractive years ago. The U.S. Department of State's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report in 2024 confirmed an increase in both victim identification and convictions compared to 2022, with 133,948 victims identified and 7,115 convictions in 2023.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) reported a 26% increase in persons referred to U.S. attorneys for human trafficking offenses in fiscal year 2022, compared to 2012. Hutchinson recounted the story of a black hat hacker who was tasked with locating a man who had eluded U.S. federal agencies for a decade and was suspected of abusing over a hundred children.
The hacker managed to infiltrate various file-sharing services on the dark web, discovering that the man was uploading from Costa Rica and later Nicaragua. By identifying the names of individuals the man had been associating with, Hutchinson and his team were able to track them to a sports bar. "So, I was undercover, talking to these guys and figuring out, and saying, 'hey, yeah, I'm down here for this,' and they go, 'Oh, we're gonna introduce you. We've got a friend named Bruce, keep this silent, but he takes care of guys just like you.' Boom, we got a warm introduction to a guy who the FBI hadn't got a hold of for 10 years," Hutchinson shared.
AI is also being utilized in healing programs for the Child Liberation Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Hutchinson in 2017 that focuses on anti-sex trafficking and survivor rehabilitation. The technology allows children who have been victims of abuse to converse with a therapist, who can then be animated into the child's favorite television character, such as Barney. These systems are designed to alleviate trauma and are based on thousands of books related to child psychology and therapy.
Hutchinson expressed optimism about the fight against child sexual abuse, stating, "There's so much good out there that we are using to help combat this. Just as much as the bad guys are using deepfakes and whatever else to try to push their agenda in their direction. We're going to win. We're gonna win this war because there's way more good guys out there than there are bad guys and together, we can use this technology to save the kids."
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