Attorney Generals across every state in the United States have urged Congress to study and consider an AI art ban over the tech’s ability to exploit children, both real and fictional.

These high-profile individuals signed a letter to urge lawmakers that an “expert commission be established by Congress to study the means and methods of artificial intelligence (AI) used to exploit children specifically, such as through the generation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and to propose solutions to deter and address such exploitation in an effort to protect America’s children.”

Here’s a quote from the digital letter:

As Attorneys General of our respective States and territories, we have a deep and grave concern for the safety of the children within our respective jurisdictions. We also have a responsibility to hold accountable those who seek to harm children in our States and territories. And while internet crimes against children are already being actively prosecuted, we are concerned that AI is creating a new frontier for abuse that makes such prosecution more difficult.

AI art generators such as Stable Diffusion have been known for a while to be able to produce artwork and erotic illustrations of convincing quality, with some even capable of creating highly realistic art.

The letter expressed concern about real life child abuse images being used to then generate new perverse artwork, as AI generators can study existing images to then generate new ones:

There was also a concerning paragraph in the letter that addressed realistic content depicting children that don’t exist:

The first point made in the paragraph is likely false, as plenty of AI-generated erotic art featuring underage characters is based upon existing hand-drawn artwork of underage fictional characters that don’t exist.

There was also no evidence provided proving erotic AI-generated art of underage characters mostly uses child abuse material of real children as source images.

Some might be worried this paragraph intends to have Congress ban explicit AI-generated loli art that doesn’t use real world child abuse material as a source image.

Such regulation might end up causing a crackdown on erotic loli artwork in general, despite it being fictional content.

It’s worth noting some critics are convinced the act isn’t meant to actually protect children, but instead crack down on AI technology.