Disturbingly realistic sexual images of children generated by artificial intelligence are spreading worldwide across social media and online forums — often based on real photos scraped from the internet or school yearbooks.
In Japan, these images fall into a legal gray zone that leaves those who have had their photos used as training data for such AI with no clear path to justice. That gap is becoming increasingly dangerous, experts warn, as AI tools are making it easier for anyone to create and share hyper-realistic images with just a few clicks.
“The current law was designed to protect real children, but generative AI has blurred the line between real and fake,” said Takashi Nagase, a lawyer and professor at Kanazawa University who helped draft internet policy at the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.
AloJapan.com