Attorneys general from all 50 U.S. states and four territories are urging Congress to address AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Their letter calls for a committee to study the risks and for existing laws against CSAM to explicitly cover material made with artificial intelligence.
Why the attorneys general want federal action
The letter argues that AI is making a new form of abuse easier to create and harder to prosecute. While crimes against children online are already prosecuted, the signatories say AI-generated imagery raises challenges that existing approaches may not fully address.
Their concern includes deepfakes: images that realistically place a person in a false scenario. The letter focuses on sexualized depictions of actual children, and says the harm does not depend on whether a child in the source photographs was physically abused.
According to the attorneys general, creating and circulating such images threatens the physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing of the children depicted, as well as their parents. That reasoning frames the issue around the effects of the images themselves, not solely around what happened during the creation of a source photograph.
A proposed path: research, then clarify the law
The signatories are asking Congress to establish a committee to research solutions to the risks of AI-generated CSAM. They also want existing CSAM laws expanded so that they expressly include material generated by AI.
The request puts two steps on the table: examine how the technology changes the risks, then ensure the law addresses the resulting material. The letter does not describe a specific proposed statute or list the committee’s membership; it calls for Congress to take up the issue and develop a response.
That distinction matters because the source describes a gap between the spread of nonconsensual, sexually exploitative AI deepfakes and the limited legal protections available to victims. The attorneys general’s proposal seeks a national examination of that gap and a clearer legal scope for AI-generated CSAM.
Existing measures leave uneven coverage
Some states already restrict the dissemination of sexually exploitative AI deepfakes. The source identifies New York, California, Virginia and Georgia as states with such laws. It also notes that Texas became the first state to ban using AI deepfakes to influence political elections in 2019.
These examples concern different legal measures and do not establish a uniform approach across the country. The coalition’s appeal to Congress signals that state-level provisions alone are not the response its members are seeking for AI-generated CSAM.
Major social platforms also prohibit this content, but prohibited material can still appear on their services. The article describes an app that claimed to “swap any face” into suggestive videos and ran over 230 ads across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger in March. Meta removed the ads after NBC News reporter Kat Tenbarge notified the company.
Online reach makes enforcement harder
The example illustrates a practical challenge: policies can prohibit exploitative deepfakes, yet ads or other material may pass through before platforms act. The attorneys general’s letter raises a related concern about prosecution, arguing that AI is creating a frontier for abuse that makes cases more difficult.
The article also points to international discussions, where European lawmakers are working with other countries toward an AI Code of Conduct. Negotiations were still in process, leaving that effort unresolved in the account.
Together, the letter and these examples show why the coalition is pressing for both research and explicit legal coverage. The attorneys general say sexualized AI depictions of real children can cause serious harm, while existing state laws and platform policies provide an uneven response. Congress is being asked to study the risks and address them through CSAM law.