FBI Arrests Man For Generating AI Child Sexual Abuse Imagery

By Samantha Cole

This article was produced in collaboration with 404 Media, a new independent technology investigations site.

The FBI arrested a man on criminal charges after he allegedly used AI to generate child sexual abuse images and then sent them to a minor. 

Steven Anderegg, a 42 year old man from Holmen, Wisconsin, allegedly used Stable Diffusion, a text-to-image generative AI model, to create “thousands of realistic images of prepubescent minors,” prosecutors said in an announcement on Monday. “Many of these images depicted nude or partially clothed minors lasciviously displaying or touching their genitals or engaging in sexual intercourse with men. Evidence recovered from Anderegg’s electronic devices revealed that he generated these images using specific, sexually explicit text prompts related to minors, which he then stored on his computer.”

He then allegedly communicated with a 15-year-old boy, describing his process for creating the images, and sent him several of the AI generated images of minors through Instagram direct messages. In some of the messages, Anderegg told Instagram users that he uses Telegram to distribute AI-generated CSAM. “He actively cultivated an online community of like-minded offenders—through Instagram and Telegram—in which he could show off his obscene depictions of minors and discuss with these other offenders their shared sexual interest in children,” the court records allege. “Put differently, he used these GenAI images to attract other offenders who could normalize and validate his sexual interest in children while simultaneously fueling these offenders’ interest—and his own—in seeing minors being sexually abused.”

This marks one of the first known instances where the FBI has charged someone for using AI to create child sexual abuse material. 

In March, Wisconsin state police charged Anderegg with two counts of “exposing a child to harmful material” and an additional charge of “sexual contact with a child under age 13," and he pleaded not guilty, Forbes reported at the time. The sheriff’s deputy said in an affidavit that Anderegg was taking requests from other people online for generating AI images of juveniles. AI porn marketplaces have become big business for makers of abusive imagery.

The announcement notes that Anderegg was caught because Instagram reported his account to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for distributing the images.  

“He had on this laptop over 13,000 GenAI images, with hundreds—if not thousands—of these images depicting nude or semi-clothed prepubescent minors lasciviously displaying or touching their genitals,” court records allege. “Still others depict prepubescent minors touching what appear to be adult male penises or engaging in sexual intercourse. Additional evidence from the laptop indicates that he used extremely specific and explicit prompts to create these images. He likewise used specific ‘negative’ prompts—that is, prompts that direct the GenAI model on what not to include in generated content—to avoid creating images that depict adults.”

404 Media has reported on Stable Diffusion’s capabilities for generating child sexual abuse material and generative AI companies’ acknowledgement that their users could be making CSAM with their tools. Specifically, we have reported on the use of “negative prompts” to avoid creating AI images of adults. This case illustrates what online child abuse experts warned about months ago, when the LAION‐5B dataset was found to contain suspected child sexual abuse imagery: that even if no real children are identifiable in AI generated imagery, predators could use the generated images to groom real children.

“Today’s announcement sends a clear message: using AI to produce sexually explicit depictions of children is illegal, and the Justice Department will not hesitate to hold accountable those who possess, produce, or distribute AI-generated child sexual abuse material,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri said in an FBI press release.

Anderegg is in federal custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for May 22.