Artificial intelligence’s industrial revolution has the potential to transform society in remarkable ways. For example, we mere mortals can now absorb a comprehensive understanding of any subject within a split second of typing a question on a screen. The rate at which AI is progressing is impressively fast. Any hiccups today will be but a faint memory soon.
As with any technology, darker applications of AI have also evolved and abounded. A Florida middle school teacher was recently arrested after allegedly using school servers to download and distribute child pornography (also known as child sexual abuse material) and images depicting animal sexual abuse. The images were believed to be AI-generated, created from real photos of his students.
Multiple such cases, in which an individual used AI to create explicit images and videos of children or paid someone who is technologically adept to create deepfakes for them, have occurred in recent months. The children portrayed are often known to them, including daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, or children living in their neighborhood.
In 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 19 million reports of child pornography, and more than 67,000 reports involving generative AI, a 1,325% increase from the prior year.
Considering that reported child sexual abuse material reflects only a small proportion of the content currently plaguing the internet, one can only imagine the true scale of this problem. Because AI allows child pornography to be created more easily than before, these images will only continue proliferating at an exponential rate.
This is because the demand for this content will, unfortunately, always exist. Pedophilia, which is a sexual interest in prepubescent children, is a mental illness that can’t be cured. Neuroimaging research, including studies I have worked on, shows that pedophilia is hard-wired in the brain.
However, instead of viewing pedophiles as a threat to children, many academics and “experts” have been steadfast in taking the opposite approach, bestowing upon pedophiles the anodyne-sounding moniker, “MAPs” (or “minor-attracted people”). In my opinion, this is designed to make sexual attraction toward children more palatable to the public. This approach is underscored by the belief that, so long as a pedophile doesn’t act on their sexual urges, pedophilia is a morally neutral expression of sexuality.
Academics who support the creation of AI child pornography believe that because “real” children aren’t depicted, there are no victims, but I disagree. If AI-generated images aren’t trained on child pornography (which, lest these academics have forgotten, involves the sexual abuse of real-life children), they will be trained on adult pornography combined with non-sexual images of children who did not consent to having their likeness used in that way.
No data exist to suggest that this type of content will lower rates of sexual offending. If anything, AI-generated child pornography could increase the chances of pedophiles committing an offense, particularly if these images or videos incorporate the face of a child they know.
If, by way of academics and activists pushing this agenda, AI-generated child sexual abuse material is considered benign or socially acceptable, I’m willing to bet that, in time, non-AI-generated child pornography will be, too. This will erode child safeguarding by dulling the alarm bells that normally start ringing in our heads whenever we see adults acting inappropriately with children. It is exactly what child molesters want. This is not a turn of events I am willing to entertain.
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Laws criminalizing the possession and distribution of AI-generated child pornography differ by state, as AI-created material isn’t necessarily included in child pornography statutes. Content created by AI isn’t constrained to real-life situations and scenarios, which opens the door to endless possibilities regarding what predators will be capable of producing. Sexual abusers can use this content to sexually groom children in ways they couldn’t in the past, when they were limited to using non-AI-generated child pornography or pornography depicting adults.
As AI advances in its technological capabilities, it will only become more realistic and widespread. The corresponding problem of child sexual abuse material will only worsen, with many more arrests to come and associated threats to child safety. This is a line we cannot cross as a society, an ambivalence we cannot tolerate.
Dr. Debra Soh is a sex neuroscientist and the author of The End of Gender. Follow her @DrDebraSoh and visit DrDebraSoh.com.