U.S. Army soldier charged with using AI to create child sexual abuse images

The arrest of Seth Herrera marks the government’s increased focus on penalizing the creation of child pornography using artificial intelligence.

Federal prosecutors have charged a U.S. Army soldier with using artificial intelligence to generate explicit sexual images of children he knew, marking the government’s increased focus on penalizing the creation of child sexual abuse imagery using AI.

Seth Herrera, 34, an Army soldier stationed in Anchorage, possessed thousands of images depicting the violent sexual abuse of children and relied on AI tools to generate realistic child sex abuse material, according to a Monday statement from the Justice Department. He was arrested last week and made his initial court appearance Tuesday.

Herrera took pictures of minors he knew and ran them through AI software to undress them or transpose them onto pornographic images depicting them performing oral sex or being penetrated by a sexual object, court documents said. He stored and received child sex abuse imagery through popular messaging apps such as Telegram.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/27/ai-child-porn-csam-soldier/