Law Enforcement Braces for Flood of Child Sex Abuse Images Generated by A.I.

Law enforcement officials are bracing for an explosion of material generated by artificial intelligence that realistically depicts children being sexually exploited, deepening the challenge of identifying victims and combating such abuse.

The concerns come as Meta, a primary resource for the authorities in flagging sexually explicit content, has made it tougher to track criminals by encrypting its messaging service. The complication underscores the tricky balance technology companies must strike in weighing privacy rights against children’s safety. And the prospect of prosecuting that type of crime raises thorny questions of whether such images are illegal and what kind of recourse there may be for victims.

Congressional lawmakers have seized on some of those worries to press for more stringent safeguards, including by summoning technology executives on Wednesday to testify about their protections for children. Fake, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift, likely generated by A.I., that flooded social media last week only highlighted the risks of such technology.

“Creating sexually explicit images of children through the use of artificial intelligence is a particularly heinous form of online exploitation,” said Steve Grocki, the chief of the Justice Department’s child exploitation and obscenity section.

The ease of A.I. technology means that perpetrators can create scores of images of children being sexually exploited or abused with the click of a button.

Simply entering a prompt spits out realistic images, videos and text in minutes, yielding new images of actual children as well as explicit ones of children who do not actually exist. These may include A.I.-generated material of babies and toddlers being raped; famous young children being sexually abused, according to a recent study from Britain; and routine class photos, adapted so all of the children are naked.