AI Brings New Risks for Our Kids

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming many aspects of modern life for the better. From helping researchers analyze complex medical data to optimizing business operations and opening new doors in education, the potential benefits are real and wide-ranging.

But like any powerful technology, AI also carries significant risks — and when children are involved, those risks demand urgent attention.

The digital world today's children are growing up in is evolving faster than most families can track. When social media first went mainstream, parents worried about screen time, cyberbullying, online predators, and the long-term impact of a child's digital footprint. Those concerns haven't gone away. But technology has kept moving, and with it have come entirely new dangers.

Chief among them is the rise of AI-generated content — images, videos, and conversations produced almost instantly, often with little to no human oversight or built-in safeguards.

One tool that has drawn significant concern is Grok, an AI integrated into the social media platform X. Accessible directly through X or via a standalone app, Grok is within easy reach of children and teenagers. Despite whatever intentions may have guided its development, reporting has confirmed that the tool has been used to generate sexually explicit imagery without consent — including child pornography.

This is part of a deeply troubling broader trend. AI-generated deepfake pornography involving minors is on the rise, and child safety advocates across the country are sounding the alarm. A 2024 report from THORN found that 1 in 10 minors know peers who have used generative AI tools to create deepfake images of other children. With AI tools only becoming more capable and accessible since then, that number has almost certainly grown.

What makes this especially alarming is how little it takes to create such images. An ordinary photo pulled from a child's social media profile can be manipulated into something degrading within seconds. Once those images begin circulating among classmates or online communities, the damage — to a child's reputation, mental health, and sense of safety — can be swift and severe.

Victims often face harassment or coercion from those who threaten to spread the images further, while parents are left scrambling to contain something that may have already spread beyond reach.

Law enforcement, meanwhile, is struggling to keep up. Many of the laws governing exploitation and harassment were written long before AI made it possible to produce this kind of material at scale.

Policymakers across the nation are beginning to grapple with how to respond — and while laws punishing the creation of AI-generated child pornography have been passed, far less has been done to address the root problem: preventing platforms from allowing children's images to be weaponized in the first place.

The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA) has worked alongside policymakers for years to ensure that laws reflect the realities children and families actually face, including on recent internet safety legislation. That work must continue to evolve as technology does.

AI will undoubtedly shape the future in profound ways. The task before us is making sure that future is one where innovation and legislation advance together — with the safety of children as a non-negotiable priority. The digital landscape has changed dramatically, but our responsibility to protect children has not. Parents, educators, lawmakers, and community leaders all have a role to play in meeting this moment.