ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers introduced new legislation to make it illegal to create sexually explicit materials of anyone younger than 16 with artificial intelligence.
According to Senate Bill 9, anyone who creates or distributes obscene material of a child, including electronic images, videos, drawings, sculptures or paintings, or that would appear to realistically be of a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct, would be committing a crime.
If those images are made using artificial intelligence, the bill makes it so the person creating the material spends up to 15 years in a Georgia prison, if convicted.
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Additionally, due to the use of AI, the bill says the child in the images doesn’t have to be a real person.
“It is not a required element of an offense under this Code section that the child depicted actually exists,” the bill says.
This would include materials the average person would consider prurient interest, or a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex or excretion, according to the bill text.
SB 9′s text also says that the material qualifies as illegal if it, when taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value and depicts or describes sexually explicit content in a patently offensive way.
Penalties, in addition to possible prison time, include a $5,000 fine and a minimum of one year in prison for the first offense for a misdemeanor. Similarly, if the defendant is convicted of a felony, they’ll face a $5,000 fine and a minimum prison sentence of two years.
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