U.S. federal prosecutors are ramping up efforts to combat the rising threat of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated child exploitation material. Law enforcement officials warn that the advancement of generative AI technology is making it easier for offenders to create and distribute child abuse images, raising concerns about the normalization of such content.
This year, the U.S. Department of Justice has already brought two significant cases against individuals accused of using generative AI to produce explicit images of children. These cases mark an important turning point as prosecutors begin applying existing laws to crimes involving AI-generated content, a legal frontier that could face challenges as courts interpret the role of new technology in child exploitation cases.
James Silver, chief of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, emphasized the urgency of the situation: “AI makes it easier to generate these kinds of images, and the more that are out there, the more normalized this becomes. That’s something we must stop before it escalates further.”
The growing capabilities of generative AI have sparked concerns among federal authorities that this technology may exacerbate cybercrimes such as child exploitation, cryptocurrency scams, and election interference. In the realm of child abuse, AI is being used to manipulate innocent images of children into sexualized content, making it harder for law enforcement to distinguish between real victims and digitally altered images.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), an average of 450 monthly reports related to AI-generated child exploitation material were received in the past year. While this figure is a fraction of the millions of online child exploitation reports overall, experts believe this is just the beginning.
The legal landscape surrounding AI-generated child sex abuse imagery remains largely untested. While traditional child pornography laws clearly apply to explicit depictions of actual minors, cases involving purely AI-generated imagery tread new ground. In situations where no real child is depicted, prosecutors may resort to obscenity laws to charge offenders.
One recent case involved Steven Anderegg, a Wisconsin software engineer, who allegedly used the popular text-to-image AI tool, Stable Diffusion, to generate explicit images of young children and shared them with a minor. Anderegg, who has pleaded not guilty, is awaiting trial while seeking dismissal of the charges on constitutional grounds.
A similar case involves U.S. Army soldier Seth Herrera, who allegedly used AI to morph innocent images of children he knew into abusive depictions. Herrera is also awaiting trial, with both cases underscoring the complexities of prosecuting AI-driven offenses.
As the AI industry rapidly evolves, advocacy groups and tech companies are stepping in to prevent the misuse of this powerful technology. Nonprofits Thorn and All Tech Is Human have secured commitments from major tech firms, including Google, Meta, and OpenAI, to avoid training AI models on child abuse imagery and to monitor platforms to prevent the creation of harmful content.
Rebecca Portnoff, vice president of data science at Thorn, stressed the urgency of addressing the issue now: “I don’t want to paint this as a future problem, because it’s happening now. But there’s still hope we can act during this critical window to prevent it from spiraling out of control.”
As AI technology continues to advance, prosecutors, advocates, and tech companies alike face the daunting task of curbing the potential abuse of AI systems before they flood the internet with illicit and harmful material.
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