By Christine Dolan
April 8, 2024

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Conversations around the world need to include the dark side of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its effects on Internet sex crimes against children and take these discussions very serious. The trauma to children and families is real.

Recently, Illinois state legislators took up the mantle and discussed how their state law needed to mirror this coming onslaught of AI, as reported initially in the Chicago Tribune.

Lawmakers debated a measure prohibiting the use of AI technology to create child pornography, regardless of whether the images involved real children or fake images that evoked obscene imagery.

The measure, which ultimately passed through the House Judiciary Criminal Committee, was pushed by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

Gong-Gershowitz claimed AI content is “quickly” reaching a point of being indiscernible from authentic images.

“The mass creation of AI-generated child pornography material will only make it more difficult for law enforcement to stop child trafficking,” Gong-Gershowitz stated. “Law enforcement will not only have to deal with the sheer volume of … content, but also identifying that the content depicts a real child or is the sole creation of AI. And while no real child may have been harmed at the AI-generated content, it normalizes abusive behavior, namely when it purports to depict sexual abuse of a child.”

David Haslett, Chief of the Illinois Attorney General’s office’s high-tech crimes bureau, testified that AI could make it more difficult for law enforcement to bring charges of child pornography because of confusion over whether images were real or computer-generated.

“How is the system going to deal with this when we cannot prove that it is a real child because it’s not?” Haslett asked. “We’re trying to be proactive about this so that when AI does become indistinguishable from a real product, that it does not flood the market and present this material being everywhere and then we can’t stop it.”

This discussion is not unlike what happened over 25 years ago when the Internet became an international portal for perverts. The Internet was initially flooded with recycled child pornography images and cybercrime law enforcement officials had to figure out if those images were recycled images or images of real victims in real time who had to be rescued.

Discerning what was history and real time images then was not law enforcement’s only hurdle. Allocating financial resources and upgrading technology were major issues because the volume only increased overtime.

Gong-Gershowitz’s introduced a measure that amended Illinois’ state child pornography law to include depictions of children under 18 “who by manipulation, creation, or modification, appears to be engaged in sexual activity.”

The amendment has defined an “obscene depiction” as a visual representation that includes an image, video, computer-generated image or video, “whether made, produced, or altered by electronic, mechanical, or other means.”

If a party receives or accesses such images that act could result in a prison term of up to five years for a first offense. Producing or reproducing such images could lead to a prison sentence of up to 15 years.