AI and Child Exploitation - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, & The Future

Speaker: Michael Lee, President, National Crimes Against Children Investigators Association (NCACIA)

Description:
This session examines how artificial intelligence is changing child exploitation and child protection. It covers how offenders use AI to deceive, groom, coerce, and scale exploitation across platforms. It also covers how investigators, CACs, and MDT partners can adapt their response, strengthen prevention messaging for families, and leverage AI responsibly for faster, higher quality casework.

Part One: "The Bad and The Ugly" - AI enabled Child Exploitation, Now and in the Near Future
Participants will learn how AI changes the speed, scale, realism, and access of child exploitation. The session will address AI enabled identity deception, grooming automation, synthetic sexual imagery and sextortion, platform and brand cloning, and authority and family impersonation. It will also explain where offenders obtain AI tools without guardrails, why common safety assumptions fail, and what practical rules parents can enforce to reduce risk.

Part Two: "The Good” - AI as a Force Multiplier for Child Protection, Now and in the Near Future
Participants will learn how AI can support MDT work when used ethically and defensibly. The session will highlight realistic use cases for triage, investigative lead development, digital evidence review, data linkage, pattern detection, and cross agency collaboration. It will also address limitations, bias and error risks, privacy concerns, and the need for clear policies so AI strengthens child safety without creating new harms.

Learning Objectives:

This workshop is designed to help you:

1. Explain why AI does not change offender motives, but changes capability, speed, scale, and credibility.
2. Identify AI enabled identity deception and grooming tactics, including deepfakes, youth appearance generation, and language mirroring.
3. Recognize AI enabled sextortion dynamics, including coercion driven by shame and reputational harm, even when content is synthetic.
4. Describe platform and infrastructure exploitation, including website and brand cloning, embedded chatbots, and mass grooming operations.
5. Identify authority and family impersonation tactics, including cloned voices and crisis manipulation designed to bypass supervision and disclosure.
6. Explain where offenders access AI tools outside guardrails and why safeguards are inconsistent across providers.
7. Deliver concrete prevention messaging to parents and caregivers, including enforceable identity verification rules and early reporting language.
8. Describe ethical, defensible ways AI can support child abuse investigations and multidisciplinary coordination.
9. Identify near term trends and policy needs, and family facing education priorities.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher Harris County Child Abuse Task Force