A North Carolina-based child psychiatrist has been hit with a 40-year prison sentence for using artificial intelligence to make child pornography.

Using images from a school dance and a photo commemorating the first day of school, amongst others, David Tatum, 41, used a 'deepfake website' to digitally alter clothed images of minors in order to make them sexually explicit.

Tatum was also charged with secretly recording his 15-year-old cousin and other underage family members as they undressed and showered at a family vacation home in Maine. 

The incident highlights the ease with which inappropriate and illegal images can be manipulated and distributed using AI technologies.