The Office of the State Attorney charged a 38-year-old Pensacola man Tuesday under Florida’s new AI generation law for using Grok AI to generate and edit photos of child sex abuse material.
Tyler Vanover was originally arrested April 28 for multiple counts of possession of child sexual abuse material, but the Office of the State Attorney additionally charged him Tuesday under Florida’s new generated child pornography law after he allegedly told investigators he would alter the photos in Grok AI.
Now, Vanover is charged with eight counts of possessing child sex abuse material (CSAM), nine counts of generating child pornography, three counts of possessing or soliciting child porn and one count of using a two-way device to commit a felony.
The new law signed in 2025, prompted by a Pensacola case where a student used AI to virtually undress female classmates, is a third-degree felony punishable up to five years in prison.
In January, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agent began an investigation after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received a cyber tip of an individual uploading 47 files of CSAM.
The IP address connected to Vanover’s home address, according to police reports, which led to a search warrant execution on April 28.
Vanover then told the investigators that he “utilized the Grok AI application to generate child sexual abuse material.”
“Vanover estimated the age of the youngest child he asked the AI bot to generate would have been approximately 16 to 20 years of age,” the report said. “Vanover indicated that he asked the AI bot to generate children in this age range.
“However, at times the AI bot would generate CSAM with children much younger,” the report added. “Vanover stated that he would use old images of CSAM, which he located online, input them into Grok and asked the AI bot to generate CSAM.”
According to the report, Vanover “made a full confession to his activities online while using the Grok AI application.”
Investigators also allegedly located multiple files of CSAM on Vanover’s laptop during the search warrant. One file found contained a child between the age of 9 and 11.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola man charged with using Grok AI to create child porn
Reporting by Benjamin Johnson, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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