ATLANTA () — A bill moving through the Georgia Senate would increase penalties for making or possessing explicit AI-generated content depicting children.

“We are not okay with this material, and we are not okay with using our children’s faces to create this material and if so, there will be heavy repercussions for doing it,” said Rep. Brad Thomas who sponsored the bill.

Lawmakers are sending a bill through that would set a standard—having or making computer-generated child pornography is illegal, despite the fact that none of the children depicted in the images actually exist, a common defense for the crime.

“It is illegal no matter what and they can’t hide under the cover of, ‘This doesn’t feature a real child so there’s no damage done,'” Thomas said.

Hayden Wimmer, a professor of information and technology at Georgia Southern University said, “Especially based on this type of content it does matter. whether it was AI or it was somebody that drew a physical picture it’s no different.”

Wimmer said that AI can create an image much like an artist can, using other pictures for inspiration.

“It’s probably been trained on a lot of inappropriate images – maybe not on children but it’s also been trained on images of children so now – just like anybody – it can put the two together.”

He said widely available AI technology, like ChatGPT or DALL-E, blocks itself from creating explicit content, making it a difficult crime—at least for now.

“It would take an incredible knowledge of technology to do that so I don’t think that the standard person would be able to do that,” said Wimmer. “That’s not saying there’s not some whiz people out there who are generating these images and then selling them.”

The bill would also give harsher punishments for crimes “enhanced” by AI, like creating revenge porn or even using a loved one’s voice to beg someone for money.

“Because you’re enhancing an existing crime, the punishment should be enhanced,” said Thomas.