“CSAM generated by AI is still CSAM,” DOJ says after rare arrest

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The US Department of Justice has started cracking down on the use of AI image generators to produce child sexual abuse materials (CSAM).

On Monday, the DOJ arrested Steven Anderegg, a 42-year-old "extremely technologically savvy" Wisconsin man who allegedly used Stable Diffusion to create "thousands of realistic images of prepubescent minors," which were then distributed on Instagram and Telegram.

The cops were tipped off to Anderegg's alleged activities after Instagram flagged direct messages that were sent on Anderegg's Instagram account to a 15-year-old boy. Instagram reported the messages to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which subsequently alerted law enforcement.