The number of images and videos of child sexual abuse generated by artificial intelligence (AI) is increasing "alarmingly" on the internet, a British organisation responsible for monitoring and removing such content from the web warned on Friday.
A large number of these images or videos showing minors being "abused and mistreated" are "so realistic that they are almost indistinguishable from images and scenes of real children," said a statement from the Internet Watch Foundation, one of Europe's most prominent watchdog organisations.
The tremendous development of generative AI, which can produce text and images based on a simple request in everyday language, has facilitated the creation of this material using children in pornography, which is illegal in the UK.
The Internet Watch Foundation received 70 reports of such cases between April 2023 and March 2024, and this year it received 74 reports in just six months, between April and the end of September 2024.
Nearly all of these images were on open sites, which are easily accessible to the public, and came mainly from Russia (36%), the United States (22%), and Japan (11%).
Three-quarters of these reports were made directly to the association by internet users, after they had posted them in "forums or AI image galleries".
An analyst at the organisation, who asked not to be named for security reasons, described the increase in reports as "frightening", fearing that it could be a sign of reaching a "critical point" and expressing concern that "hundreds of new images and scenes" would flood the organisation and the police without them being able to "know if there is a real child somewhere who needs help". The organisation's statement quoted its acting director general, Derek Ray Hill, as calling on members of the British parliament to adapt current laws "to the digital age" and its ever-evolving tools.
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