"Sadistic" criminals are using AI to generate child abuse images, says home secretary Yvette Cooper

Speaking on Sky News this morning (February 2), home secretary Yvette Cooper said law enforcers could use a new ban on AI-made child sexual abuse material to secure prosecutions and “keep more children safe”.

Cooper added that these AI-made images of child sexual abuse are “accelerating the abuse” committed against children. This is because it both increases the amount of material available on the internet, but also opens the door for more audacious paedophiles to begin grooming children too.

In an interview with Trevor Phillips, she said: “What’s now happening is that AI is putting this on steroids, and it is making it easier for perpetrators, for abusers, to groom children, and it’s also meaning that they are manipulating images of children and then using them to draw and to blackmail young people into further abuse. It’s just the most vile of crimes.

“I’m really worried that people think, ‘oh, well, it’s AI, we shouldn’t take it seriously’. Actually, the evidence is that what it’s doing is it’s actually escalating, accelerating, the abuse, and that’s why the laws that we’re bringing in - this is world-leading, other countries are not yet doing this, but I hope everyone else will follow.

“Very often they [abusers] are using images of real children and then abusing them, manipulating them and making them sexualised. These are being circulated then in these huge forums and what the National Crime Agency will say is this is drawing more perpetrators into more extreme and more sadistic abuse.

“So, what we need to do is to strengthen the law, and that includes banning some of the AI models being used for child abuse; the National Crime Agency does immensely important work, but they are saying these further powers are needed, and they will then be able to use them to get prosecutions to keep more children safe.”