It might be hard to believe, but AI-generated child porn has been considered legal in the state of California.
Of course, conventional child pornography is illegal, but pedophiles are now using AI to create artificial images, and the law has been lagging behind.
Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko says his office has been fighting for a bill to update the laws because, as he tells KNX News' Emily Valdez, "In the last eight months, we received eight cases that we wanted to prosecute but could not."
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According to Nasarenko, experts in these cases determined that the images were AI-generated, not real people, and therefore not considered illegal.
Now, thanks to a bill signed just this week by Governor Gavin Newsom, AI-generated child porn will be treated as if it is actual child porn, closing this glaring loophole in child protection.
"Given the governor's signature, we're grateful to him and to assemblymember Marc Berman, who sponsored this bill," Nasarenko said, "we can now begin to receive these cases and, when the facts and evidence support it, file criminal charges."
The new law also makes it a crime to take a real child's face and digitally put it on an adult body in a sexually explicit image.
"So long as a reasonable person looking at that image would believe it was a real person, you can indeed charge and prosecute and hold these offenders accountable," said Nasarenko.
The new law will go into effect on January 1st.
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