Congressman Bob Good called upon the U.S. Department of Justice to outline how it plans to address a potentially criminal use of artificial intelligence: AI-generated child sexual abuse materials.
In a letter signed by 29 other members of Congress, Good wrote, “The first reports of AI being used to exploit children for the purpose of generating CSAM surfaced in 2019, when it was revealed that AI could generate obscene, personalized images of minors under the age of 18.”
The Sept. 14 letter asked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to respond by Oct. 13.
“What we need is for the attorney general to appropriately investigate and prosecute,” Good told The Daily Progress. “But we ask if there is some gap in the law, some help you need from Congress so you can take care of this appropriately.”
In an internal poll conducted on a dark-web forum, about 80% of respondents said they had used or intended to use AI tools to create child sexual abuse materials, according to reporting by The Washington Post.
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And a BBC investigation found that on Patreon, a content sharing website, some accounts sell “AI-generated, photo-realistic obscene images of children.”
While such images are illegal, even if AI-generated, Good said there are no known cases of someone being charged or prosecuted for creating them.
“You could take an actual photo of a child and create these kinds of material from that photo or just create images that aren’t of actually the child but portray that,” Good said.
The congressman mentioned that while AI can do “a lot of wonderful and innovative things,” he’s also heard many concerns about its potential harms.
On Sept. 4, attorneys general from every state signed a bipartisan letter to Congress urging the body to study how AI can be used to exploit children through child sexual abuse materials.
“While internet crimes against children are already being actively prosecuted, we are concerned that AI is creating a new frontier for abuse that makes such prosecution more difficult,” the letter reads.
“We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI. Indeed, the proverbial walls of the city have already been breached. Now is the time to act,” it continues.
In Good’s letter, he listed six questions for the Justice Department to answer, including how it is addressing the AI-generated materials.
“We don’t really need more law that we’re aware of,” Good told The Daily Progress, adding that the letter is partly intended to learn if the department is somehow inhibited from prosecuting such incidents by a gap in the legal system.
“Does the DOJ have the necessary authority and resources to effectively combat artificially created CSAM?” reads the second question in Good’s letter.
The department has not yet responded to Good.
The creation of these materials may create an additional challenge for law enforcement. Not only might it increase the amount of child sexual abuse material that officials must sort through to identify victims, but it could add the additional step of determining whether such images are real or fake.
“It’s a very serious issue and, it’s only going to grow,” Good said.
