Boise man arrested under Idaho law banning AI child pornography

A Boise man became the first person in the Ada County arrested under an Idaho law that makes it illegal to possess child pornography generated by artificial intelligence.

Detectives with the Ada County Sheriff’s Office arrested Tyler Cox, 19, on Tuesday morning on suspicion of possessing child sexually exploitative material and visual representations of sexual abuse of a minor.

Both allegations carry felony charges under Idaho law.

Police said they found Cox with pornography depicting both real and AI-generated minors, the Ada County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

In 2024, the Idaho Legislature passed a law banning the use of “generative AI” or “machine learning” to create videos or images showing “a child engaging in explicit sexual conduct.”

“Sexually explicit images of children have long been illegal, but advances in technology created gray areas when images were generated by artificial intelligence,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

The new law is designed to close that gap.

While this was the Ada County Sheriff’s Office’s first arrest under the law, it wasn’t the first in the state. At least three people have been found guilty under the AI law since it took effect, according to a May press release from the Idaho Attorney General’s Office.

In September a Nampa pastor was arrested on multiple child pornography charges, including one involving the use of AI.

Online court records show that Cox has an arraignment scheduled for Dec. 31 at the Ada County Courthouse. He is being held at the Ada County Jail.