By: Grace Dumas, News of the North

Lawmakers are considering legislation that would expand criminal penalties for child sexual abuse material to include images generated using artificial intelligence and other digital tools.

Senate Bill 247, Sponsored by Juneau Sen. Jesse Kiehl, would create new crimes for the possession and distribution of “generated” child sexual abuse material, also known as CSAM, including images that appear to depict minors but may not involve real children.

Under the bill, distributing such material would be a felony, with harsher penalties for repeat offenders. Possession of generated CSAM would also be a felony offense.

Distribution under this bill is relatively broad and includes sharing or posting such content online.

United Nations, just this January released a warning on escalating AI threats to children.

The staggering amount of harmful AI-generated online content has prompted an urgent call from across the UN system for a raft of measures to protect children from abuse, exploitation and mental trauma.

This is a new form of sexual exploitation, the rapid progression of AI means lawmakers are struggling to craft legislation to prevent such harm from happening.

“Artificial intelligence is leading to the ability to generate images, generate videos, generate vast amounts of content, and that ability is growing fast, unfortunately, along with the ability to modify or create your own cute cat videos, some people use these technologies to terrible effect.” Said Kiehl, ” Senate Bill 247 addresses computer generated or otherwise generated Child Sexual Abuse materials. It amends Alaska law to create parity between generated Child Sexual Abuse materials and non generated Child Sexual Abuse materials, what we think of as photos or videos that have not been modified of real children. We know that artificial intelligence is, when it comes to images, a highly sophisticated collage machine, and that those images are made ultimately from things that are real, those are the data sources of millions, often billions, of real images on which these large language models, these artificial intelligences, are trained. The bill sets the punishments for generated Child Sexual Abuse materials on par with, and equal to non-generated CSAM that avoids overburdening bogging down law enforcement resources, court system resources, with the difficulty of proving that an amalgamated image has a real child under the age of 18 in it.”

The proposal also updates existing laws to include manipulated or altered images of real minors, even if the material was digitally created or modified.

In addition to criminal penalties, the bill would require the permanent revocation of teaching certificates for individuals convicted of certain sex offenses involving minors, including those tied to generated materials. It would also prohibit people convicted of those crimes from obtaining school bus driver licenses.

“The real prevalence of child sexual abuse is not known because so many victims do not disclose or report their abuse. However, adult representative or retrospective studies by the CDC has shown that one in four women and one in six men were sexually abused before the age of 18, and we know Alaska has one of the highest rates per capita of child sexual abuse in the nation.” Said Trevor Storrs, the President and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust, “Ai generated CSAM represents one of the most urgent and fast moving threats facing children today. In 2023 the National Center for Missing Exploited Children, received 4700 reports of AI related CSAM, by 2024 that number had grown to 67,000 and in the first half of 2025 alone, they received more than 400,000 such reports, an average of over 2000 every single day. At the same time, extortion, where offenders use real or AI generated images to blackmail children, continues to surge.”

Lawmakers say the bill is part of a broader effort to modernize Alaska law while technology continues to evolve, it’s one of several bills currently making their way through the legislature meant to strengthen protections for children.

SB 247 is set to be heard again in the legislature on Thursday.