South Korea moves to criminalize AI porn of fictional characters

South Korea is moving to close a legal loophole that let distributors of AI-generated pornography featuring fictional personas escape punishment. The legislative push came after the Uijeongbu District Court in Goyang acquitted a man accused of distributing deepfake images of nude women in a Telegram chat room. The judge ruled that because the victims were virtual, not human, the existing law — which carries up to seven years in prison or a 50 million won (US$35,341) fine — did not apply. Prosecutors had charged him under that law, but the court said there was “no material confirming the origin or synthesis method of the image, making it difficult to conclude that a real person was depicted.”

In response, Rep. Huh Young and nine other lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea proposed a bill that would criminalize the creation, distribution, and possession of sexually explicit material made using artificial intelligence, even when it does not depict a real person. The legislators cited rapid advances in AI that make it easy to create virtual images indistinguishable from real individuals, warning that the technology is being misused to produce manipulated sexual content that causes “sexual humiliation or disgust.” The bill has been referred to the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee for detailed review. If passed, South Korea would become one of the first countries to explicitly ban fictional AI pornography, setting a significant precedent for regulating synthetic media.