BOISE, Idaho — The House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee agreed to print its chairman's bill - Rep. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa) - to criminally charge predators in possession of artificial intelligence-based child pornography.
Rep. Dori Healey (R-Boise) co-sponsors the legislation. Currently, AI child porn is a loophole to Idaho's criminal law regulating the offense, according to Skaug. The bill would make possession of AI-generated child pornography a felony.
"You can now look at an image, and it looks like a real child. You can't tell a difference in child pornography of a real child or it's artificial," Skaug said. "Now, you don't have to be an expert on artificial intelligence to put something like this together."
Skaug consulted an investigator at the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Unit to craft the legislation. ICAC showed appropriate AI-generated content to display the power of the technology.
Skaug found it to be indistinguishable from reality.
"Clearly child pornography is evil, and it's our job to restrain it," Skaug said. "This should be very bipartisan. I've had Democrats and Republicans tell me, 'please run this bill,' and so we are."
The bill also ties up loose ends in the existing law to provide protection for law enforcement investigating these cases. While not enforced, a police officer could technically be charged with possession of child porn while having that content for the sole purpose of investigating the crime.
"So, this clears that up," Skaug said. "There's technical fixes."
Rep. Kenny Wroten (R-Nampa) provided his insight into the legislation, citing overall concerns with the rapid advancement of technology. Wroten formally motioned for the bill introduction.
"AI was hardly prevalent 12 months ago. Look where it is now. Technology doesn't go backwards. Technology will move exponentially," Wroten said. "This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better if we don't do something now, and we will probably continue to still play catch up."
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