HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday this week announced the arrest of two men accused of possessing child porn created with artificial intelligence, and a day later announced he’s again petitioning Congress to prevent a federal preemption of state laws addressing such crime.
Sunday is one of 36 state attorneys general who signed a letter Tuesday to the majority and minority leaders in the U.S. House and Senate urging them against placing a moratorium on state laws addressing AI.
That came amid reports that the House is considering, with The White House’s support, adding a moratorium on state AI laws into a national defense bill, according to Reuters and others.
“We MUST have one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes. If we don’t, then China will easily catch us in the AI race,” President Donald Trump wrote this week on social media.
Trump signed an executive order on Monday to create the “Genesis Mission,” a public-private partnership with multiple big tech companies like Google and Amazon, plus higher education institutions, to build out a platform bringing together multiple scientific and technological resources. The order didn’t address state laws.
“Genesis Mission will develop an integrated platform that connects the world’s best supercomputers, experimental facilities, AI systems, and unique datasets across every major scientific domain to double the productivity and impact of American research and innovation within a decade,” according to the Department of Energy.
Sunday joined attorneys general in May in a letter to Congress opposing a 10-year moratorium on state AI laws that had been included in the One Big Beautiful Bill. That provision was adopted by the House but later rescinded by the Senate amid mounting pressure from state lawmakers and like-minded advocates.
The provision had threatened to withhold billions in broadband funding from states, something The Washington Post said was again considered as a federal cudgel for compliance.
“I am again joining many colleagues in urging Congress to allow states to continue on with the great progress we are making to protect children, families, and communities from the dangers of artificial intelligence,” Sunday said this week. “We continue to charge offenders who use A.I. to exploit and abuse children and unsuspecting adults by manipulating images and sharing them online — an enforcement tool made possible by our state Legislature. Our legislative leaders continue to work on additional bills that will strengthen protections from dangerous uses of technology.”
Pennsylvania lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a law in 2024 making it illegal to share deepfake pornography generated with artificial intelligence.
A second law adopted this year establishes the offense of digital forgery — the intentional creation of a computer-generated image, video or other digital likeness that’s knowingly fake and used to defraud or injure someone else.
A third bill cleared the state Senate this month that would expand the responsibility of mandated reporters to report child pornography, including materials generated by AI, to the Department of Human Services regardless of whether the material was created or shared by another minor. It awaits consideration win the state House.
There are pending proposals regulating AI in health care and in political advertisements.
All would be jeopardized by a potential federal moratorium.
While recognizing the potential good AI could achieve in improving the lives of Americans, the coalition of attorneys general noted how the technology is used by bad actors to generate harmful deepfake images, videos and social media profiles, the harm caused to people’s mental health as a result, and how it’s also used to manipulate and sexually exploit children.
State laws protect against AI-generated child porn, manipulative and untruthful deepfakes, improper rent-setting for tenants, spam calls and texts, the coalition states. In 20 states, current law includes comprehensive data privacy provisions, most of which allow consumers to opt out of “specific kinds of consequential, automated decision-making and require risk assessments before a business can use high-risk automated profiling.”
“Broad preemption of state protections is particularly ill-advised because constantly evolving emerging technologies, like AI, require agile regulatory responses that can protect our citizens. This regulatory innovation is best left to the 50 states so we can all learn from what works and what does not. New applications for AI are regularly being found for healthcare, hiring, housing markets, customer service, law enforcement and public safety, transportation, banking, education, and social media. We remain hopeful that this technology will be used to make people healthier, wealthier, happier, and safer, but cannot overlook that this will not always be the case,” this week’s letter from the coalition reads.