The sharing of explicit AI-generated images of high school students has triggered an uproar in an affluent New York City suburb and left the teens, parents, school, and police wondering how they can address the violations given what the Wall Street Journal describes as a "lack of clarity on such images' legality." Federal law has yet to address faked sexual images of real people, which have exploded across the internet with the release of innovative artificial intelligence tools. It takes just a single photo to create a faked image or "deepfake," per Axios. And more than 90% of deepfakes are pornographic, according to image-detection firm Sensity AI, per the Journal. Only a handful of states have outlawed the sharing of pornographic deepfakes or given victims the right to sue creators, per the Journal.
One or more male students at Westfield High School in New Jersey altered existing photos of classmates available online into pornographic images using an AI tool, per the Journal. The highly realistic images, nearly impossible to differentiate from real photographs, were then shared with other boys at school. In an Oct. 20 email to parents, Principal Mary Asfendis said she believed the images had been deleted and were no longer circulating, per CBS News. A Westfield Public Schools rep declined to say how many students were involved or whether any faced discipline, citing student confidentiality. Though Westfield police are investigating, it's unclear if officers will find a violation of the law.
State Sen. Jon Bramnick, whose district includes Westfield, is reviewing state laws to see if any criminalize the creation and sharing of deepfakes. If they don't, he plans to draft a bill to that effect. "This has to be a serious crime in New Jersey," he tells the Journal, noting he's asked the Union County Prosecutor's Office to investigate. The Biden administration has also called for blocking AI-generated child sexual-abuse images and "non-consensual intimate imagery of real individuals," per the Journal. Dorota Mani, whose daughter's photo was altered, says she's "terrified" the images will surface and affect 14-year-old Francesca "professionally, academically or socially" down the line. "You'd never think one of your classmates would violate you like this," says Francesca. (Read more deepfakes stories.)