Federal Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of Charge Related to AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

<p>A federal appeals court has ruled that it is bound by a 2002 Supreme Court precedent regarding the possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The Seventh Circuit stated that the Supreme Court's decision forced it to protect the in-home possession of such material, despite concerns about advancements in technology that complicate legal definitions established nearly 25 years ago.</p><p>The court's ruling highlights a growing disparity between Supreme Court precedent and the rapid development of artificial intelligence. The Seventh Circuit noted that it was constrained by a Supreme Court ruling that rejected restrictions on sexually explicit depictions of fictional children when no actual child was involved in their creation. However, judges expressed concerns that modern AI can generate images that are nearly indistinguishable from those depicting the abuse of real children.</p><p>Judge John Lee stated, "Indeed, in Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court addressed the scope of First Amendment protections for virtual CSAM, but that was nearly twenty-five years ago, and the image-generation technology available today was likely unimaginable back then. Given the relentless advancement in artificial intelligence models, we have some concerns about the lines these cases draw, but we are not free to redraw them ourselves."</p><p>The Seventh Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of one of four charges against Steven Anderegg, who was found to have hundreds of AI-generated sexually explicit images of children on devices seized from his home in Wisconsin. Anderegg faced charges of producing and distributing the AI-generated material, transferring it to a minor under 16, and possessing it. The district court dismissed only the possession charge on First Amendment grounds, leaving the other three charges intact.</p><p>The Justice Department had appealed the dismissal, arguing that the government should be allowed to prohibit the possession of obscene virtual child sexual abuse material, even when no actual child was involved in its creation. However, the Seventh Circuit sided with the lower court's decision.</p><p>Generally, the government cannot criminalize the private possession of obscene material within a person's home, but it can prohibit the possession of child sexual abuse material involving real children due to the exploitation of actual victims.</p><p>The Supreme Court complicated this distinction in 2002 when it struck down restrictions on sexually explicit images of fictional children created without using actual minors, reasoning that the government's interest in protecting children from exploitation did not apply similarly when no real child was involved.</p><p>Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow with Advancing American Freedom, stated that the appeals court "had no choice but to uphold the dismissal under the First Amendment" due to the Supreme Court's ruling. He concurred with Judges Lee and Kolar, who warned that the rapid growth of AI technology might require the Supreme Court to revisit its precedent.</p><p>Von Spakovsky noted, "Unfortunately, AI-generated images are now virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, and some of these images may be created based on real child sexual abuse material. Technology may have overtaken and overwhelmed the reasoning used in those prior decisions."</p><p>The Supreme Court previously ruled in Free Speech Coalition that morphing images of real children into sexually explicit poses would not be protected under its ruling regarding the possession of child sexual abuse material depicting fictional children, as this practice involves the interests of real children.</p><p>Justice Department lawyers have cautioned that the rise of AI-generated child sexual abuse material could hinder investigators' efforts to identify real victims, as increasingly realistic artificial images become harder to distinguish from actual abuse depictions.</p><p>Judges Lee and Kolar raised additional concerns in their concurrence, citing research that found hundreds of child sexual abuse material images in a major dataset used to train image-generating AI. They suggested that this could create a link between AI-generated material and the exploitation of real children, although they emphasized that the government did not raise this issue in the current case and that the record was insufficient to resolve it.</p><p>Justice Clarence Thomas had anticipated this dilemma over two decades ago, warning in the Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling that advancing technology could eventually render virtual depictions indistinguishable from child sexual abuse material involving real victims. He stated, "If technological advances thwart prosecution of ‘unlawful speech,’ the Government may well have a compelling interest in barring or otherwise regulating some narrow category of ‘lawful speech’" to enforce laws against material produced through the abuse of real children.</p>