I think this issue is closely related to a theory of law enforcement that seeks to find future criminals before they commit any crimes and to then separate them from society.
Following this topic suppose a person has never committed any IRL sex crimes but gets access to these kinds of AI photos and likes them.
Of course if owning or distributing them is a crime, then that itself is a crime.
But suppose it wasn't as no actual victims were involved.
In that case the question would be whether to assume such people were going to commit IRL sex crimes later.
Again, what studies have been done on this, if any?
Arresting such people is kind of like arresting people for thoughts.
Forgetting the pedo aspect which is of course very very hot button, do you really want to live in a world where your own private thoughts are criminalized?
For example, it's obviously a rare human being that hasn't at least THOUGHT about murdering someone. Shall we lock everyone up just for thinking that?