Press Release: Attorney General Labrador Urges Congress to Study AI and its Harmful Effects on Children

The following press release was sent out by the Office of Attorney General Raúl Labrador. Press releases do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.

Boise, ID – As part of a bipartisan 54-state and territory coalition, Attorney General Raúl Labrador joined a letter urging Congress to study how artificial intelligence (AI) can and is being used to exploit children through child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and to propose legislation to protect children from those abuses.

“I encourage Congress to establish a dedicated commission with the sole purpose of understanding how AI can be used to exploit the most vulnerable among us. The urgency of our cause cannot be overstated. As AI advances, the dangers to our children only grow. Our coalition of 54 states and territories highlights the urgency for swift congressional intervention. It is our duty to not only understand the issue but to craft policy solutions that shield our children from exploitation,” Attorney General Labrador said.

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The dangers of AI as it relates to CSAM is in three main categories: a real child’s likeness who has not been physically abused being digitally altered in a depiction of abuse, a real child who has been physically abused being digitally recreated in other depictions of abuse, and a child who does not even exist being digitally created in a depiction of abuse that feeds the market for CSAM.

The letter states,

“AI is also being used to generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM). 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. 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.”

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Attorney General Labrador and the rest of the coalition ask 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.”

The letter continues,

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

Besides Idaho, the South Carolina led letter is co-sponsored in a bipartisan effort by Mississippi, North Carolina, and Oregon. They are also joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

You can read the full letter here:

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