U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Andy Kim have introduced the Preventing Recurring Online Abuse of Children Through Intentional Vetting of Artificial Intelligence (PROACTIV AI) Data Act. This legislation aims to encourage AI developers to identify, remove, and report known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from datasets used in training AI models.
“Modern predators are exploiting advances in AI to develop new AI-generated child sexual abuse material, and technology companies are often unwittingly giving them the tools to do so,” said Sen. Cornyn. “By encouraging tech companies to proactively screen their datasets to remove and report explicit images of children, this legislation would mitigate the risk of AI platforms unintentionally enabling the creation of new content depicting child sexual abuse and better safeguard children online.”
“As we develop AI models, it is important that we establish critical protections to look out for the most vulnerable in digital spaces,” added Sen. Kim. “This bill is an opportunity for Congress and AI developers to take an important step forward together and implement the necessary safeguards to keep our children safe from future misuse or exploitation.”
The act comes as foundational AI models require vast amounts of data for training, which can sometimes include harmful materials such as CSAM. Researchers at Stanford University found more than 3,000 likely CSAM entries within datasets like LAION-5B, used for training leading image-generating models.
According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, incidents involving AI-generated CSAM have increased significantly with nearly half a million cases reported in just the first half of this year.
The PROACTIV AI Data Act proposes directing the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to issue voluntary best practices for screening datasets used in training AI models for known CSAM. It also calls on the National Science Foundation to support research into innovative methods for identifying and removing CSAM from datasets while providing limited liability protection for companies following these best practices.
The initiative builds on First Lady Melania Trump’s efforts against rising issues like deepfake pornography involving minors.
