Imagine being the victim of AI-generated pornography circulating on the internet. Or worse, if your child’s image was being used. A bill to prevent AI (artificial intelligence) from being used to make child pornography or pornography using non-consenting adults is now law in Pennsylvania.
At a press conference Monday, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele praised the law, with Deputy Attorney General Angela Sperrazza and Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R-Montgomery), a sponsor.
“We hear a lot about artificial intelligence,” said Pennycuick. “It’s transforming industry, advancing healthcare, improving transportation and even reshaping the way we do business. But with innovation comes risk.”
One of the “darkest and most troubling uses of AI” is “the creation of AI-generated deepfakes.”
“These deepfakes are hyper-realistic,” she said. The photos or videos often depict individuals “in explicit scenes that never occurred.”
Photos from a social media post of a high school yearbook can be “turned into deeply harmful, sexually explicit materials,” said Pennycuick.
And “sexually deepfake images of minors” are increasingly used every day,” she said.
“What’s most alarming is that the children are the prime target,” she said.
Since Congress has not addressed “the dangers of AI,” Pennsylvania officials stepped in to breach the gap.
Pennycuick, chair of the Communications and Technology Committee, introduced the bill, now Act 125 of 2024, to combat the problem. It closes a loophole to prohibit AI-generated child pornography, and AI-generated child pornography using on-consenting adults, she said.
“Law enforcement now has the tools it needs to prosecute individuals who create or share these insidious materials,” said Pennycuick. “The use of AI to harm others, especially our children, will not be tolerated.”
Steele thanked all the members of the legislature who voted for the bill and the governor for signing it.
“It provides a new protection for children and adults alike,” said Steele.
“When the stuff gets released…it’s very, very difficult to recover,” said Steele. “If it’s out there, it’s out there. The impact of something like this is causing great stress to the targets of those AI-generated materials and their families. We’ve seen that already in the short time that AI’s been around.”
There’s been cases where someone created AI-generated images of someone they know with the intent to harass or harm the other person,” said Steele. “Sometimes they get sexual gratification from this.”
“This past year, we’ve seen incidents where we’ve seen the creation of sexually exploitation materials of individuals who’d never consent to that type of material, let alone [it] being disseminated,” said Steele. “It’s been difficult to talk to victims about not having this tool, about not being able to prosecute on this specific activity because it didn’t fit in with [the statutes].”
“We had a specific case where an older individual had a whole collection of child sexual assault material, and inside these were secreted files of AI-generated sexual assault materials of a very young child he had access to.”
“He’s charged, and we’re proceeding with that prosecution,” said Steele. “But we were not able to charge for these [AI] images.”
But in future cases, they can.
“This is a crime,” he said. “And there are severe consequences for those that are going to engage in this activity.”
“You’re going to be in a boatload of trouble if you’re going down this path,” he said. “Our goal is to hold child predators accountable for their crimes. And this new law removes a substantial obstacle for us to achieve justice for those families, for adult victims, for child victims.”
Sperrazza, who leads the child predator unit, said, “This is a tool we need.”
“It keeps us at the forefront. As technology changes, the way children are exploited will change, so we have to change with it.”
Pennycuick said the bill was a bipartisan effort. Former Sen. Jimmy Dillon (D-Philadelphia) and Sen. Lisa Boscola (D-Lehigh) also sponsored it.
Asked about the number of cases in the state or Montgomery County, officials didn’t know. Sperrazza said a 69-count indictment was just filed against two men in Lancaster County.
Steele said kids, parents, and schools need to understand “that this is a crime and they will be held accountable for it.” He noted the law includes felonies and first-degree misdemeanors.
“This isn’t messing around,” he said.
In crafting the law, Pennycuick said they worked with a lot of groups, including the District Attorney’s Association and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“We had a lot of buy-in from different groups that touch this area,” she said.
Sperrazza said, “It’s punishing the same way you’d punish regular child pornography.”
