Criminals and the porn industry are almost invariably early adopters of new technologies. For better or worse their use-cases are proof-of-concepts that get expanded and built on, if successful, by more legitimate industries.
Re: the Internet.
Re: Peer-to-peer.
Re: Video streaming.
Re: AI.
What is the average length of time for new tech to escape porn and crime and integrate into real applications? Longer than 15 years?
Some kind of function of how quickly regulation comes to the technology.
How were criminals the early adopters of Internet, Video streaming and AI?
They weren't but it makes certain people feel better to say it.
Single examples:
Internet: The Cuckoo's Egg (nation state, more so than criminals maybe, but it's a blurry distinction)
AI: Elon Musk youtube (often cryptocurrency scam) ads
Video streaming was more obviously exclusively a porn thing