Jackley calls for study and new laws to protect children from AI exploitation

South Dakota Searchlight – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley and colleagues from 53 states and territories are asking congressional leaders to create an expert panel on how artificial intelligence is to used to exploit children.

“Artificial intelligence has its benefits, but there is also potential for serious harm that we are now experiencing with several investigations in South Dakota,” Jackley said Tuesday in a news release.

That serious harm includes “deepfakes” that use real children’s voices and photographs taken from social media to create computer-generated child pornography, Jackley said.

The request for Congress to study AI’s impact on children comes from the National Association of Attorneys General. In a letter, the association is urging Congress to create an expert commission and to take steps to protect children.

Earlier this year, a Rapid City man was sentenced to six years in federal prison for the possession of computer-generated child pornography. The charges in that case included obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.

South Dakota Searchlight found earlier this year that the visual representation law had been applied eight times in South Dakota since 2000. Four of those cases were filed in 2022, with two others filed in 2017 and 2018, and the remaining two filed against a single defendant in 2003. The recent cases involved computer-generated imagery; some of the older cases involved comics and drawings.

Each of the cases landed in federal court, because it’s currently the only option for prosecutors who uncover electronic imagery of child exploitation. Jackley is calling for action to address that at the state level.

“We will be working with legislators to address ‘deepfakes’ and to make AI generated child pornography a crime in South Dakota,” he said.

The next state legislative session begins in January.