South Carolina Attorney General Wilson leads effort to end AI exploitation of children

South Carolina GOP Attorney General Alan Wilson is leading a bipartisan effort pushing Congress to investigate how artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to exploit children sexually. 

"We need to make sure that the technology – or rather the law, has caught up with the technology of AI," Wilson told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show Wednesday evening.

Earlier this year, Wilson spearheaded an effort by attorneys general from all 50 states to push Congress to investigate how AI is being used to exploit children via social media, oftentimes without the knowledge of parents. 

You can read their letter here: 

“AI is also being used to generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM)," the letter reads. "For example, AI tools can rapidly and easily create 'deep fakes' by studying real photographs of abused children to generate new images showing those children in sexual positions. This involves overlaying the face of one person on the body of another."

Attorneys general from Mississippi, North Carolina and Oregon cosponsored the letter. 

Wilson explained that another major concern is AI creating images of children out of thin air that predators can easily get access to. 

"Another thing that a person could do is they could create a fake child completely out of thin air – a child that doesn't exist," Wilson said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "Imagine a video of a 12-year-old child engaging in a sexualized video. With a sexualized video being on the internet, you haven't actually offended a child. But you have fed the demand for that type of conduct."

As technology continues to advance, there have been many concerns about how it can be abused, as well as a lot of praise for the benefits it can bring.

Last month, Pope Francis warned about the possible adverse effects of artificial intelligence and the need to monitor the technology in his message for World Day of Peace. 

In February, the U.S. government proposed a "Political Declaration on the Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy" that encourages countries to follow international law and ethically use AI in the context of defense."