A scammer used AI to paste a teenage boy’s face onto a naked body before extorting him for cash, the new head of the NSPCC has warned in a stark example of the new horrors facing children online.
In his first interview as CEO of the leading children’s charity, Chris Sherwood warned that the threat from generative AI could be worse for children than the impact of social media.
His comments come as Childline, the helpline run by the NSPCC, has reported seeing young people increasingly mentioning AI abuse in their counselling sessions.
Last year, Childline recorded 178 counselling sessions with mentions of AI-related phrases, new data reveals. In a demonstration of how AI is already impacting the lives of young Britons, the top concerns where AI was mentioned were mental health issues, online safety issues such as bullying or sexual abuse, school problems, friendship issues and sex, and relationships and puberty.
Children specifically referenced AI therapists, AI role play, and AI chatbots in their sessions with Childline.
Mr Sherwood, who started in the role earlier this year, warned we are “just at the start” of a tech revolution that will shape the lives of this generation’s children. He said that, while there are huge benefits to come from artificial intelligence, “generative AI has the potential to be particularly pernicious, much more pernicious than social media has been”.
“It could be used for positive ends or for dark ends and we’re just at the start of this,” he added. “I don’t want to be sitting here as the NSPCC chief executive in 10 years’ time hearing stories about how AI has damaged young people’s lives. We can take action now to build regulations that protect children.”
Mr Sherwood grew up in an abusive household and knows how vital Childline is, having made a trip to a phone box himself to seek help through the service.
Speaking about the concerns about AI being reported through the service, he said: “I’m thinking of one particular story of a boy who was 16 and contacted Childline about his image being placed on a naked body, his photograph, his face, and the person who had done that was asking him to pay £200 otherwise she would share that image more widely.
“We’ve heard bullying stories where generative AI is being used to portray a young person’s sexuality as a way to bully them in school. There are lots of really tragic stories of naked images being shared on platforms like Snapchat and then being distributed around people’s friends in school. Bullying, sextortion, these are issues facing young people today.”
Under the new crime and policing bill, which is progressing through the Commons, it will become a criminal offence to optimise AI models to create child sexual abuse imagery or sell these models to other offenders.
On a single dark web forum, the Internet Watch Foundation identified 3,152 AI abuse images in a one-month period. Police have warned that paedophiles are using AI to create increasingly extreme images of children.
Children are also turning to AI therapists or making friends with AI chatbots; one American teenager took his own life after “falling in love” with a Game of Thrones-themed character.
Mr Sherwood added: “In my first seven weeks in the job, it’s really clear to me that the need for the NSPCC is greater in the future than it has been in the past. When our founders sat round a table 140 years ago, they weren’t dealing with generative AI, they weren’t dealing with social media.”
In a recent trip to visit Childline services in Aberdeen, counsellors told him that 10 years ago, it would be rare to talk to a young person expressing suicidal ideation but that is now a feature of every shift.
While some progress has been made in regulating social media companies in the Online Safety Act, new laws are urgently needed to deal with the AI threat, he explained. “The plane is being built as we speak. We left it too late with social media and we have to learn those lessons.”
The NSPCC has called for a statutory duty of care on generative AI companies, ensuring that they are held accountable for the safety of children, and robust risk assessments on models to ensure they are safe before they are rolled out.
On Tuesday (11 March), Mr Sherwood will launch the NSPCC’s six-point plan for children in parliament, calling for “significant action by political leaders and government”.
The charity’s asks include new legislation to tackle the emerging risks from AI, wholesale reform of children’s social care and investment in early years support for families, and strengthened safeguards for home-schooled children in light of the tragic case of Sara Sharif.
The charity is also campaigning for a change in the law in England to ban physical punishment against children. A loophole in the current law allows parents to smack their children if it is a “reasonable punishment” – something Mr Sherwood described as “just not acceptable”.
The CEO is also asking for guaranteed access to therapeutic services for young victims of child sexual abuse, a key recommendation from Professor Alexis Jay’s inquiry that has yet to be implemented. Mr Sherwood acknowledged it was a challenging ask in “an era of economic restraint”, but said despite promising statements from home secretary Yvette Cooper on the government’s response to the inquiry: “We need action now.”
An estimated 500,000 children will suffer from some form of child sexual abuse every year, but waiting times for services that support them have more than doubled since 2015, NSPCC research found.
With harsh measures reportedly coming in Rachel Reeves’s spring Budget, Mr Sherwood warned that investment needs to be targeted on early-years support to stop money “going from preventative services into crisis-end services”.
He called on the government to restore Labour’s record on family support, saying: “This government had a proud record when they were last in power, with Sure Start centres, and we saw the benefit they delivered. There is an opportunity for a 21st-century equivalent of that. We know that pressures on families can tip over into abuse and neglect, so investment is really important for supporting families and young people.”
If you are a child and you need help because something has happened to you, you can call Childline free of charge on 0800 1111. You can also call the NSPCC if you are an adult and you are worried about a child, on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adults on 0808 801 0331
