A.I.-Generated images of child sexual abuse are flooding the internet

Published:  Thu 10 Jul 2025

A new flood of child sexual abuse material created by artificial intelligence is hitting a tipping point of realism, threatening to overwhelm the authorities.

Over the past two years, new AI technologies have made it easier for criminals to create explicit images and videos of children. Now, researchers at organizations including the Internet Watch Foundation and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children are warning of a surge of new material this year that is nearly indistinguishable from actual abuse.

New data released Thursday from the Internet Watch Foundation, a British nonprofit that investigates and collects reports of child sexual abuse imagery, identified 1,286 A.I-generated videos of child sexual abuse this year globally, compared with just two in the first half of 2024.

Read the full article at the New York Times.

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