The British government announced legislation on Saturday to crack down on artificial intelligence (AI) tools used to create sexual abuse images, becoming the first country in the world to criminalize the use of AI to create child sexual abuse images.
Home Affairs Minister Yvette Cooper has announced that the government has declared it illegal to possess, create or distribute artificial intelligence (AI) tools designed to create sexual images of children. According to him, it would also be illegal to have AI ‘pedophile manuals’ that teach people how to use AI to sexually abuse children and could result in a prison sentence of up to three years.
Home Secretary Cooper told Sky News on Sunday, “Online child sexual abuse material is on the rise. There are also attempts to teach teenagers about sexual activity online using AI. It’s really sad. AI is putting it on steroids.” “AI tools are making it easier for criminals to ‘create false images of teenagers.’ In addition, they are using manipulated images of children to attract teenagers and lure them into further abuse,” he said.
“This is the most heinous crime,” he said. “The new law will ban some AI models that are being used for ‘child abuse,’” Cooper said.
“Other countries are not doing this (lawmaking) yet, but I think everyone else will follow suit,” he said. The UK government has said that AI tools are being used to create child sexual abuse images by ‘nudging’ real-life photos of children or ‘adding the faces of other children to existing photos’.
The new law will also criminalize people who operate websites designed for ‘other pedophiles’. Cooper told the BBC on Sunday, “A recent study found that around half a million children in the UK are victims of some form of abuse every year. These measures will be introduced in Parliament as part of the Crime and Policing Bill.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has warned that AI is producing images of children in sexual abuse cases. Over a 30-day period in 2024, IWF analysts identified 3,512 AI child abuse images on a single dark web site. The number of images in the most serious category has also increased by 10 percent in a year.
