North Carolina House Bill 591

• Authority: North Carolina
• Parent authority: State governments
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. state and local documents
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2024-12-01

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Exposure to toxic content
• Compromise of privacy
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document primarily addresses risks related to malicious actors (4.1, 4.3) through criminalization of AI-enabled sexual extortion, fraud, and creation of exploitative imagery. It has good coverage of privacy compromise (2.1) through regulation of AI-modified private images, and addresses toxic content (1.2) by criminalizing AI-generated child sexual abuse material. The document focuses on preventing specific harms rather than broader AI governance or systemic risks.

Sector coverage

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Information
• Educational Services
• Health Care & Social Assistance
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs the Information sector through regulation of online service providers and digital content platforms. It also has minimal coverage of Public Administration through law enforcement and judicial processes, and Educational Services through provisions regarding sex offenders on school premises.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding state statute enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly with criminal penalties including felony and misdemeanor classifications, mandatory enforcement through the criminal justice system, and specific penalty provisions for violations.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: The General Assembly of North Carolina
• Summary: The document explicitly states that it is enacted by the General Assembly of North Carolina, which is the state legislative body that proposed and ratified this bill.

Target

• Entity Types: Affected_Stakeholder
• Entities: Persons who create, distribute, or possess AI-modified images of minors or private images; persons who commit sexual extortion; minors; individuals depicted in private images
• Summary: The statute targets any person who uses AI to create, modify, or distribute exploitative images, commits sexual extortion using AI-modified images, or discloses private images. It applies to both adults and minors with different penalty structures.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: North Carolina courts; law enforcement officials; Department of Adult Correction; National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
• Summary: The statute establishes enforcement through the criminal justice system including courts that impose penalties, law enforcement that investigates offenses, and the Department of Adult Correction that conducts risk assessments. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children receives reports forwarded to law enforcement.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Department of Adult Correction; National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; online service entities
• Summary: The Department of Adult Correction monitors registered sex offenders through risk assessments. Online service entities are required to monitor and report violations to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which forwards reports to law enforcement.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Build and Use Model
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document does not focus on AI development lifecycle stages but rather on the criminal use and distribution of AI-generated or AI-modified content. It addresses the deployment and use of AI capabilities to create exploitative imagery, but does not cover planning, design, data collection, model building, or validation stages of AI systems.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• Generative AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly mentions AI systems and algorithms used to create, adapt, or modify visual depictions. It does not distinguish between different types of AI (frontier, general purpose, task-specific, foundation models, etc.) or specify compute thresholds. The focus is on the output and use of AI-generated or AI-modified content rather than the technical characteristics of the AI systems themselves.