On August 25, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled in United States v. Anderegg that the federal government could not constitutionally punish the private, in-home possession of obscene AI-generated child sexual abuse material when the images did not depict an identifiable real child.

This ruling exposes a dangerous gap in our laws.

AI-generated child sexual abuse material should not receive protection simply because prosecutors cannot identify the child depicted in the final image. Modern AI can create photorealistic images that are increasingly difficult to distinguish from photographs of real abuse. Even the judges in this case acknowledged that technology has changed dramatically since the Supreme Court established the precedent they were required to follow.

There is also a serious problem with treating AI-generated material as completely disconnected from real children. Generative AI does not develop in a vacuum. These systems are trained using enormous collections of existing images, and researchers have already discovered child sexual abuse material within datasets used to train image-generating AI. Real photographs of children can also be manipulated to create fabricated sexual images of them.

The inability to identify a specific child in an AI-generated image does not prove that no real child’s image, likeness, or abuse contributed to the technology that produced it.

This is not merely hypothetical. Children have already reported having ordinary photographs transformed into sexually explicit AI-generated images and circulated among their peers. Survivors of actual childhood sexual abuse have also alleged that AI systems were used to create new abusive images based on existing photographs of their abuse.

Allowing a legal loophole for possessing realistic AI-generated CSAM risks normalizing this material, complicating investigations, overwhelming systems designed to identify real victims, and creating additional demand for increasingly realistic abusive imagery.

Technology has changed. Our laws must change with it.

We call on lawmakers to establish constitutionally sound legislation addressing the possession, creation, and distribution of AI-generated child sexual abuse material while protecting legitimate artistic, medical, educational, and other lawful expression. Whether an abusive image was created with a camera, editing software, or generative AI should not determine whether children receive meaningful protection.