Protecting Our Children in an AI World Act of 2025

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. federal laws
• Most recent activity: Proposed
• Most recent activity date: 2025-02-13

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

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 3-4 subdomains, with strong focus on toxic content exposure (1.2), malicious actors using AI for fraud and manipulation (4.3), and AI system safety failures related to dangerous capabilities (7.2). Coverage is concentrated in the discrimination & toxicity and malicious actors domains.

Sector coverage

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This legislation does not govern AI use within specific economic sectors but rather establishes criminal prohibitions that apply universally across all sectors. The law targets illegal conduct (AI-generated child pornography) regardless of the sector in which it occurs.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding federal legislative act that amends the United States Code with mandatory criminal prohibitions, eliminating affirmative defenses and expanding criminal definitions related to AI-generated child pornography.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The document is explicitly proposed by Congress as indicated in the enacting clause and legislative format.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer, AI_User
• Summary: The amendments to Title 18 USC apply to any person who violates child pornography laws, including those using AI to produce such content. The law targets developers who create AI systems for this purpose, deployers who use such systems, and users who possess or distribute the content.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: As an amendment to Title 18 of the United States Code (federal criminal law), enforcement would be carried out by federal law enforcement agencies (FBI, DOJ) and prosecuted in federal courts.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: Monitoring and investigation of violations would fall under federal law enforcement agencies responsible for enforcing Title 18 USC provisions, though no specific monitoring body is named in this amendment.

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
• Deploy

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document does not explicitly address specific AI lifecycle stages but implicitly covers the Build and Use Model stage (where AI is used to generate prohibited content) and the Deploy stage (where such systems might be made available). The focus is on prohibiting outputs rather than governing development processes.

Technical Scope

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

• Generative AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document mentions artificial intelligence in the context of producing prohibited content but does not define AI models, AI systems, or specify any technical categories such as generative AI, foundation models, or compute thresholds. The scope is implicit rather than technically detailed.