{"id":22513,"date":"2025-04-25T12:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T18:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-lawmakers-move-to-outlaw-sexually-exploitative-ai-images-and-video\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T18:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T18:55:08","slug":"colorado-lawmakers-move-to-outlaw-sexually-exploitative-ai-images-and-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-lawmakers-move-to-outlaw-sexually-exploitative-ai-images-and-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado lawmakers move to outlaw sexually exploitative AI images and video"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Senate
Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, D-Denver, speaks at a pro-union rally on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

As artificial intelligence expands its reach into more aspects of people\u2019s lives, Colorado lawmakers want to ensure the state\u2019s policies around online harassment and child pornography are keeping pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a modern world where our identities and our selves exist far beyond our physical bodies and are vulnerable to attack on media, on social media, in text messages\u2026 we have to adapt to protect the people in these spaces,\u201d Jessica Dotter, sexual assault resource prosecutor with Colorado\u2019s District Attorneys Council, told the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week.<\/p>\n

She was there to testify in favor of Senate Bill 288<\/a>. The legislation, sponsored by Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, expands the existing laws around posting intimate images to include material created by AI.<\/p>\n

The issue exploded into the public conversation last winter, when deepfakes of megastar Taylor Swift emerged online<\/a>. But the creation of false sexual pictures and videos has torn apart the lives of much less famous people, including a city commissioner in Florida<\/a> and a teacher in Texas<\/a> and high school students nationwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be clear, these images are not harmless. They\u2019re not virtual, they\u2019re violations,\u201d testified Will Braunstein, the head of the Denver Children\u2019s Advocacy Center.<\/p>\n

According to backers, Colorado is late to tackle this issue. While the issue of obscene deep fakes is relatively new, states have been moving quickly to criminalize the practice, when it\u2019s used to harm someone. Thirty-eight states have made it illegal to use AI to create child pornography<\/a>, something Colorado\u2019s bill would also do.<\/p>\n

That provision is raising concerns with both the ACLU of Colorado and criminal defense attorneys, who question the ethics of prosecuting people for possessing or distributing material entirely created by a computer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about someone under the age of 18 and it\u2019s not tied to a real person, how do you put an age on that?\u201d James Karbach with the state\u2019s Public Defenders Office asked lawmakers. \u201cHow do you draw lines around that? And if it\u2019s to be criminalized, should you criminalize it the same as something that harms and depicts an actual human?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill supporters countered that AI is trained on real images with real victims. And they note that as the technology improves, it\u2019s becoming increasingly difficult to separate deepfakes from real images of abuse, making it more important \u2014 in their arguments \u2014 to treat both the same under the law.<\/p>\n

The debate over abusive deep fakes comes as Colorado lawmakers are generally trying to get their arms around emerging technology<\/a> and its potential impacts on people\u2019s lives. Rodriguez is working behind the scenes on even more sweeping legislation<\/a>: a first-of-its-kind effort to put guardrails around how companies use AI to make decisions with consequences for people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

That bill has yet to be unveiled. In the meantime, Rodriguez\u2019s exploitative content bill passed its first committee unanimously and is awaiting a vote of the full Senate.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Let’s be clear, these images are not harmless\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,15,28,360],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-colorado-state-senate","tag-headlines","tag-technology-general"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22513"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}