Federal court says AI-generated child sexual abuse materials protected by First Amendment

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Wisconsin man did not break the law when he used generative AI to create child sexual abuse material, with Judge John Lee determining that U.S. Supreme Court precedent protected images generated by 45-year-old Steven Anderegg under the First Amendment because the material did not depict a real person and remained in the home. Anderegg was indicted in early 2024 after allegedly using a text-to-image AI model with text prompts designed to create sexually explicit photo-realistic images of minors.

The ruling underscores a jurisdictional gap in which private possession of AI-generated material falls outside current federal CSAM statutes where no identifiable victim exists, but the same technology is deployed by predators in live grooming and sextortion. Anti-CSAM detection integrated into messaging platforms can intercept AI-generated material at the point it is transmitted to a child or used to coerce self-generated imagery, a vector the First Amendment ruling does not protect. By analyzing the pattern and context of image-sharing in a conversation, rather than the image alone, detection systems like those deployed by Guardii surface the live exploitation event, flagging the attempt to use synthetic material as a grooming or blackmail tool and enabling intervention before a child is harmed, closing the enforcement gap the court has left open.