DV Journal

(From a press release)

Attorney General Dave Sunday announced charges against a York County man regarding possession of more than two dozen files of artificially-generated child sexual abuse material — the first time the Office of Attorney General has filed the charge since it was passed into law in 2024.

Luke A. Teipel, 22, of Dallastown, is charged with 33 felony counts of possession of child sexual abuse material, including the artificially-generated images, and one count of criminal use of a communication facility.

Teipel was recently arraigned and bail was set at $25,000 unsecured. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 24.

“This proactive investigation uncovered a defendant weaponizing modern technology to victimize and harm children,” Attorney General Sunday said. “Due to the bipartisan leadership of Senators Tracy Pennycuik and Lisa Boscola, we now have a law on the books that enables the filing of serious felony charges in AI cases that we previously could not prosecute. These charges are just a first step in using this new law to protect our communities and our children.”

“As sponsor of this legislation and Chair of the Senate Communications and Technology Committee, I’m pleased to see this law being successfully utilized by the Attorney General’s office to bring those who would harm children to justice,” said Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R-Montgomery). “The law now makes it illegal to share intimate images of children and adults without consent addressing the use of AI technology for this purpose. In addition, it prohibits AI from being utilized to generate child sexual abuse material. I applaud AG Sunday for combating “deepfake” images of minors and child sexual abuse materials generated by AI and prosecuting those individuals who commit these heinous crimes.”

During the Office of Attorney General investigation, agents discovered numerous files of suspected child sexual abuse material that was traced back to a device owned by Teipel. During a search of Teipel’s home, agents recovered a cell phone in the kitchen, containing 29 files of alleged artificially-generated child sexual abuse material.

The investigation is ongoing into how the materials were created. Charges were also filed regarding non-artificial images found on the phone and a laptop computer at Teipel’s home.

Last year, the Office of Attorney General offered input on ACT 125, which updated prior laws to prohibit the use of artificial intelligence technology to create materials that appear to “authentically depict a child under 18” engaging in sexually abusive acts that did not occur in reality.

This case will be prosecuted by Senior Deputy Attorney General Janie Swinehart. Criminal charges, and any discussion thereof, are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

2024 may go down as the year Artificial Intelligence (AI) took the world by storm.

The news is exciting but also a little unsettling. In five to seven years, we read AI will be as smart as humans. In 20 years, some say, AI will be able to do anything we can do. These claims are tricky to evaluate, but what’s clear is that AI is advancing faster than most people realize.

The more we interact with AI, the quicker it evolves, learns, and develops. In the past decade, AI has moved from beating humans at Jeopardy to writing songs and tackling advanced coding. The uncanny realism of deepfake videos featuring celebrities like Tom Cruise reminds us that stealing someone’s face isn’t just a plot for Mission: Impossible anymore.

As chairs of the Pennsylvania Senate’s Communications and Technology Committee, we are committed to fostering innovation while protecting Pennsylvanians from disinformation and digital threats, including sexual exploitation. This spring, our legislative agenda includes several bills that carefully address the challenges posed by AI. Our goal is to allow government and the private sector to harness this technology’s full potential in a way that aligns with the public good.

The cornerstone of American Democracy is a citizen’s ability to make their voice heard on Election Day. As AI technology becomes more accessible, there is a growing risk that bad actors will exploit it to create deceptively realistic content that could disrupt the political process.

Already this year, a robocall with a deep-faked voice of President Joe Biden falsely told Democratic voters in the New Hampshire presidential primary not to vote. We all need accurate information to make the best and most informed decisions for our families and communities. A vote cast because of fraudulent information is a vote stolen. To safeguard our constituents and the integrity of Pennsylvania’s elections, we’ve introduced legislation to prohibit the use of AI to fraudulently misrepresent political candidates.

As parents, we were shaken by events that came to light last autumn in Westfield, N.J. The social media app Snapchat was used to circulate AI-generated nude photos of high school students as young as 14. The Westfield case and others like it helped inspire our bill tackling sexual exploitation through the nonconsensual creation of pornographic deepfake images.

In Pennsylvania, sharing intimate images of a person without consent is illegal. However, the law doesn’t clearly address the use of deepfake technology to spread similar, AI-generated images without the subject’s consent. Our legislation, a companion to state Rep. Ryan MacKenzie’s House Bill 1063, will make it clear that the use of these tools to create pornographic images without consent is illegal.

Finally, we’re developing legislation that would require a clear disclosure on all AI-generated material.  With this information, readers and viewers can make informed decisions and protect themselves from misleading content. We clearly identify ourselves at the end of this op-ed. That’s because we believe Pennsylvanians have the right to know who (or what) creates the media they consume.

Some 14 states have adopted resolutions or enacted laws related to AI technology. Pennsylvania must be ready to join them with a thoughtful, commonsense legal framework if we want to manage the growing influence and potential risks of AI in our elections, workplaces, and daily lives.

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