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Senators advance bills to criminalize AI‑generated child sexual images and training of models
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Summary
Lawmakers moved multiple bills to update Louisiana law to cover AI‑generated child sexual abuse material and to criminalize training AI on images of minors. Law enforcement and victim‑safety advocates supported the measures; defense and civil‑liberties witnesses warned about constitutional limits and urged precise drafting.
Senators pressed forward on a package of measures aimed at covering artificial intelligence in child sexual‑exploitation statutes.
Senator Edmonds introduced Senate Bill 42 after media reports that allegedly AI‑generated explicit images of middle school children circulated in one parish. Kathleen Benfield of the Louisiana Family Forum and other advocacy groups voiced support. Megan Garvey (Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys) and Sarah Whittington (ACLU of Louisiana) urged caution, citing legal precedent such as Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition and warning that statutes that prohibit images absent a real child risk constitutional infirmities.
Senator Cloud's Senate Bill 110 goes further to criminalize the use of images of a minor to train artificial intelligence systems to generate child sexual abuse material and updates the statutory definition to explicitly include computer‑ or AI‑generated images. "AI systems are now capable of generating extremely realistic images that appear to depict children even if that child doesn't actually exist," Senator Cloud said. Chief Deputy Attorney General Larry Freeman and David Farris, commander of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, told the committee investigators are seeing rapidly advancing technology and a high volume of tips; Farris said distinguishing real from AI‑generated images can require technical analysis and that training datasets themselves may include images of real children.
Megan Garvey and Sarah Whittington urged clearer language to ensure prosecutions target exploitation of real children and to avoid criminalizing purely virtual content that case law has protected. Sponsors said they will work with the Attorney General's Office and stakeholders to tighten language before the floor.
The committee reported SB42 and SB110 favorably by unanimous consent.
