MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Alabama lawmakers are working to expand existing law pertaining to child and adult pornography to include material generated with artificial intelligence, with two such bills passing in the State House on Thursday.
With the rapid technological advancement of AI-generated media, artificially created images, audio and video can often be indistinguishable from the real thing, something lawmakers across the country have mobilized to address through legislation.
One predicament created through advanced AI media generation, according to Rep. Matt Woods, R-Jasper, is that in the case of individuals charged with possession of child pornography, a defendant may claim they were under the belief that the harmful material was AI-generated, and did not involve any real children.
In an effort to address this issue, Woods has sponsored House Bill 168, which would simply make the possession of AI-generated child pornography – whether it involves real children or not – identical to real child pornography under state law.
“The purpose for this bill is to amend our state laws to treat AI-generated child pornography the same way we treat actual child pornography; in other words, if you produce, possess or distribute child pornography, the state will no longer need to establish whether actual children are involved,” Woods said on the House floor.
“This bill also raises the age covered in the state from age 16 to age 17, and enables parties who wish to bring civil action to do so.”
The bill saw bi-partisan support on the House floor, with Rep. A.J. McCampbell, D-Demopolis, recounting an incident in his own district.
“A couple of young boys decided that they were going to take the head of one of their classmates and place it on an adult nude body that they found online,” McCampbell said.
“So I’m trying to help these young people understand: that’s not funny, that’s nothing to play with because right now, we are getting ready to pass a bill that will say to these people, you are going to now mess up your life.”
The bill ultimately saw unanimous approval, as well as 79 other House members join as co-sponsors.
Immediately succeeding Woods’ bill was House Bill 161, sponsored by Rep. Parker Moore, R-Hartselle, who described the legislation as “the adult version of the bill that Rep. Woods just passed.”
“This one would provide that it is unlawful for any person to knowingly create, record or alter a private image when the depicted individual has not consented to the creation, recording or alteration, and the depicted individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy against the creation of the private image,” Moore explained.
Much like McCampbell, Moore recounted an incident that served as inspiration to the bill in which an individual took photographs of a female colleague without her consent, and later used the images to create AI-generated sexual material.
Also like Woods’ bill, HB161 saw unanimous approval, as well as 50 other House members joining as co-sponsors.
Rep. Mike Shaw, R-Hoover, a member of Gov. Kay Ivey’s newly-formed AI task force, later told Alabama Daily News that while he was supportive of the two bills targeting AI-generated pornography, lawmakers should exercise caution going forward in their attempts to regulate the new technology, and pursue a more balanced approach.
“With workforce, we still haven’t understood the whole implication of what’s going to hurt existing jobs, things like teaching, some of these chat bots and teaching assistants,” Shaw said.
With how fast AI technology capabilities are advancing, Shaw also said that lawmakers may have to change their approach to regulation in the not-so-distant future.
“So far, all of the bills are addressing AI as augmenting what’s currently out there from a law perspective; we’re tweaking our current laws,” he continued.
“There are some things that are coming out that may just completely blow our minds as far as what it’s capable of, and it may be that you can’t tweak laws any more, we might have to wright whole new sections of laws to address some of these things, especially when it comes to workforce.”
At least for now, Shaw praised the two bills in addressing “a specific need,” as did Attorney General Steve Marshall, who said Thursday in a statement that HB168 would put Alabama “on the cutting edge of thwarting the proliferation of child sex abuse material, no matter how it is produced.”
Shaw has been working on his own AI regulation bill, specifically targeting the creation of deepfakes, which are digitally manipulated pieces of media that are indistinguishable from legitimate. Shaw told ADN that he will likely file that bill next week.