Prosecutors in all 50 US states urge Congress to protect children from AI-generated sexual abuse images

The top prosecutors in all 50 US states are urging Congress to study how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to exploit children through pornography, and come up with legislation to further guard against it.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, the attorneys general from across the country call on federal lawmakers to “establish an expert commission to study the means and methods of AI that can be used to exploit children specifically” and expand existing restrictions on child sexual abuse materials specifically to cover AI-generated images.

“We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI,” the prosecutors wrote in the letter, shared ahead of time with the Associated Press. “Indeed, the proverbial walls of the city have already been breached. Now is the time to act.”

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson led the effort to add signatories from all 50 states and four US territories to the letter. The Republican, elected last year to his fourth term, told AP last week that he hoped federal lawmakers would translate the group’s bipartisan support for legislation on the issue into action.

“Everyone’s focused on everything that divides us,” said Wilson, who marshalled the coalition with his counterparts in Mississippi, North Carolina and Oregon. “My hope would be that, no matter how extreme or polar opposites the parties and the people on the spectrum can be, you would think protecting kids from new, innovative and exploitative technologies would be something that even the most diametrically opposite individuals can agree on – and it appears that they have.”

The Senate this year has held hearings on the possible threats posed by AI-related technologies. In May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company makes free chatbot tool ChatGPT, said that government intervention will be critical to mitigating the risks of increasingly powerful AI systems. Altman proposed the formation of a US or global agency that would license the most powerful AI systems and have the authority to “take that licence away and ensure compliance with safety standards.”