Teacher Arrested for Child Porn Admits Using AI to Generate Content: Is it Illegal?
It is against the law to have explicit content of minors, but superposed or “morphed” content is not recognized nationally as a crime.
Police say they are actively sifting through image files belonging to a third-grade science teacher arrested for having child pornography and using artificial intelligence to generate erotic content involving minors.
Steven Houser
Deputies in New Port Richey, Florida, arrested Steven Houser, 67, a teacher at Beacon Christian Academy, after a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s database, Take it Down.
The tip said Houser had obtained two pictures and three videos featuring explicit depictions of children. According to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, the materials did not feature any students at the school.
However, separately, Houser is accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) and photos of three students extracted from a yearbook to generate erotic content.
Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco described Houser as “purely evil” and said the teacher did not belong in society. Pasco added that what occurred could have happened at any school, as Houser had no prior history of crime.
While police charged him with possessing child pornography, Houser was not charged for the AI-generated child pornography, leaving some parents concerned, according to Fox 13 News.
The rise of AI has brought an onslaught of new ethics questions, like “Is AI-generated pornography illegal?” as courts determine whether or not statutes banning morphed child pornography, also known as child sexual abuse material, violate the First Amendment.
“The difficult thing is that the laws can’t keep up with the criminals a lot of times, especially as you’re dealing with artificial intelligence, as you deal with computer crimes,” Sheriff Nocco said. “They’re consistently thinking ahead to different things…No matter what picture you put out there, somebody can use that later on for evil purposes.”
According to public policy think tank American Enterprise Institute, the U.S. Supreme Court does not consider superposing pictures of children into erotic situations as a crime.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has not rendered a current decision on the matter, other courts have.
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In 2007, Ohio’s Supreme Court upheld a state law regulating morphed child sexual abuse material. A federal appellate determined in 2011 that the First Amendment does not protect such morphed images. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, “morphed child pornography does not enjoy First Amendment protection,” as stated by the majority in 2020.
Several state courts have held that morphed images do not constitute child pornography, which means they are legal in some states. What the pictures in question depict is complicated: Nudity of minors alone does not constitute child sexual abuse material. There must at least be a “lascivious exhibition” of private areas.
Sheriff Nocco said the investigation into Houser’s activities is ongoing, and authorities may press more charges. The sheriff’s office confirmed that no additional victims have been reported regarding the incident.
Beacon Community Church, which runs the academy, was unavailable when MinistryWatch contacted its offices.
Houser appeared in court last week and was placed on a $500,000 bond.
Main photo: Steven Houser
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