British man sentenced to 18 years for using AI to create child sexual abuse images

LONDON (AP) — A British man who used artificial intelligence to create child abuse images was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Monday.

The court convicted 27-year-old Hugh Nelson after he pleaded guilty to several sex crimes, including making and distributing indecent images of children and distributing ‘indecent pseudo-photographs of children’. He also admitted encouraging the rape of a child.

Nelson received orders from people in online chat rooms for custom-made explicit images of children suffering both sexual and physical harm.

Police in Manchester, in northern England, said he used AI software from a US company, Daz 3D, which has an “AI function” to generate images that he both sold to online buyers and gave away for free. Police said it was a landmark case for its online child abuse investigation team.

The company said the license agreement for its Daz Studio 3D rendering software prohibits its use to create images that “violate the laws against child pornography or child sexual exploitation or are otherwise harmful to minors.”

“We condemn the misuse of any software, including our own, for such purposes, and we are committed to continually improving our ability to prevent this,” Daz 3D said in a statement, adding that the policy is to assist law enforcement “if necessary.” “

Bolton Crown Court, near Manchester, heard that Nelson, who has a master’s degree in graphic design, also used images of real children for some of his computer-generated artwork.

Judge Martin Walsh said it was impossible to determine whether a child was sexually abused as a result of his images, but Nelson intended to encourage others to commit child rape and had “no idea” how his images would be used.

Nelson, who had no previous convictions, was arrested last year. He told police he met like-minded people on the Internet and eventually began creating images for sale.

Prosecutor Jeanette Smith said outside court that it was “extremely disturbing” that Nelson could “take normal photographs of children and, using AI tools and a computer program, transform them and create images of the most depraved nature to sell online and to share. “

Prosecutors have said the case arose from an investigation into AI and child sexual exploitation, while police said it was a test of existing law because the use of computer programs as Nelson did is so new it is not specifically mentioned in current UK law.

The case reflects similar efforts by U.S. law enforcement agencies to crack down on the disturbing spread of child sexual abuse images created through artificial intelligence technology – from manipulated photos of real children to graphic images of computer-generated children.

The Justice Department recently filed what is believed to be the first federal case involving purely AI-generated images – meaning the children depicted are not real but virtual.