CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is part of a bipartisan 54-state and territory coalition urging Congress to study how artificial intelligence can and is being used to exploit children through child sexual abuse material and to propose legislation to protect children from those abuses.
“Child predators are hiding behind AI and ‘deepfakes’ to fulfill and perpetuate their perverted and violent interest in children,” Morrisey said in a press release. “AI is harming children, both victims of abuse as well as those who are harming children. We must put a stop to this.
“We must protect our children from predators who use their likeness for sinister purposes. Congress should do the right thing to stop the exploitation of children.”
Morrisey
In its September 5 letter to Congress, the coalition of AGs said AI also is being used to generate child sexual abuse material.
"For example, AI tools can rapidly and easily create 'deepfakes' by studying real photographs of abused children to generate new images showing those children in sexual positions,” the letter states. “This involves overlaying the face of one person on the body of another.
"Deepfakes can also be generated by overlaying photographs of otherwise unvictimized children on the internet with photographs of abused children to create new CSAM involving the previously unharmed children.”
The coalition asks Congress to form a commission to study specifically how AI can be used to exploit children and to “act to deter and address child exploitation, such as by expanding existing restrictions on CSAM to explicitly cover AI-generated CSAM.”
“We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI,” the coalition wrote. “Indeed, the proverbial walls of the city have already been breached. Now is the time to act.”
West Virginia joined the South Carolina-, Mississippi-, North Carolina-, and Oregon-led letter along with AGs from every other state as well as the District of Columbia, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.