AI-Generated Child Abuse Material to be Blocked from Search Results in Australia

On Friday, Australia’s internet regulator announced that it will require search engines such as Google and Bing to implement measures that prevent the dissemination of child sexual abuse content generated by artificial intelligence.

The new code, drafted at the behest of the industry giants’ government, requires search engines to ensure that such content is not returned in search results, e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.

It also requires that the artificial intelligence functions built into search engines cannot produce synthetic versions of the same material, he said. Synthetic versions of the material are also known as deepfake.

“The use of generative AI has grown so rapidly that I think it has caught the whole world by surprise to some extent,” Inman Grant said.

The code is an example of how the regulatory and legal landscape surrounding internet platforms is being reshaped by the explosion of products that automatically create truthful content.

Inman Grant said the code previously written by Google, owned by Alphabet and Microsoft-owned Bing, did not cover AI-generated content, so he asked them to go back to the drawing board.

“When the industry’s biggest players announced they were integrating generative AI into their search operations, we had draft code that was clearly no longer fit for purpose. We asked the industry to try something new,” added Inman Grant.

A spokesman for the Digital Industry Group Inc, an Australian advocacy group of which Google and Microsoft are members, said it was pleased the regulator had approved the new version of the code.

“We worked hard to reflect recent developments in generative AI, codify industry best practices and provide additional community safeguards,” the spokesperson said.

Earlier this year, the regulator registered security codes for several other internet services, including social media, smartphone apps and device vendors. These codes will enter into force at the end of 2023.

The regulator continues to develop security codes for Internet storage and private messaging services that have been opposed by privacy advocates worldwide.