A U.S. Air Force employee was arrested for secretly taking photos of children in order to create AI child abuse images.
Airman Caleb French, who was stationed in Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, with the U.S. Air Force, was arrested on December 19.
He is facing one count each of having and distributing child pornography and could be jailed for up to 20 years if convicted.
According to a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska, French is accused of “surreptitiously” taking photos of kids in the community to turn into AI-generated child sexual abuse material.
In August, 27-year-old French was reported by an anonymous tipster to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The tipster claimed French “wanted to commit sexual assaults against minors.”
Authorities then searched French’s home “and recovered multiple digital devices allegedly containing over a thousand images and videos depicting child sexual abuse,”
According to a report by The Sacramento Bee, investigators allegedly later watched French at a reindeer farm where he appeared to be filming a young child, who was there with their family, with a smartphone.
“[French] appeared to gravitate toward a family with a young child and was purportedly seen panning with his phone in the direction of the child and may have surreptitiously photographed the child,” prosecutors said.
French left after the child and the family did, according to prosecutors. In December, another search of French’s “home, person and vehicle” also allegedly “recovered additional devices that are being reviewed.”
The Ruthless Exploitation of AI
In May, a U.S. man was charged by the FBI for allegedly producing 13,000 sexually explicit and abusive AI images of children on the popular Stable Diffusion model. 42-year-old Steven Anderegg was arrested for creating thousands of “hyper-realistic images of nude and semi-clothed prepubescent children” using generative AI.
At the time, Anderegg’s arrest marked one of the first known instances where the FBI had charged someone for using AI to create child sexual abuse material. However, there have been several similar cases in the U.S. since then.
In September, an alleged pedophile was arrested after he used a GoPro to film kids at Disney World in order to create thousands of AI child abuse images.
Meanwhile, in November, a scandal, which saw a teenage boy create 50 AI nude photos of his female classmates, forced the closure of a private school.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
