UK To Become First Country To Criminalize AI-Generated Child Abuse Tools

The United Kingdom announced on Saturday four new laws that will make it illegal to create, possess, or distribute AI tools developed to generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Britain will become the first country in the world to ban and punish this kind of sexual AI-generated content.

According to the BBC, the new legal measures include punishments of up to 5 years in prison for the use of AI tools related to child abuse purposes. Other upcoming laws are considering punishment of up to 10 years for those who create or manage websites that enable pedophiles to share CSAM or advice on child grooming.

“What we’re seeing is that AI is now putting the online child abuse on steroids,” said Yvette Cooper, Home Secretary of the United Kingdom to the BBC in an interview on Sunday.

Cooper explained that the government may have to go even further with the new laws as AI has been scaling and expanding sexual abuse against children.

“You have perpetrators who are using AI to help them better groom or blackmail teenagers and children, distorting images and using those to draw young people into further abuse, just the most horrific things taking place and also becoming more sadistic,” said Cooper.

The CSAM considered in the new laws includes AI-generated images—partially or completely—and the use of software to create realistic images, “nudeify” existing images or replace faces with a child’s face.

According to data from the National Crime Agency (NCA), there are around 840,000 pedophiles or potential adult threats to children in the U.K.—around 1.6% of the population—and there are around 800 arrests for this kind of crime every month.

Other countries, like Australia, have been taking measures and banning social media for children and teenagers to reduce exposure to predators and other risks.