AI-Generated Nude Photos Of High Schoolers Investigated In South OC
The photos were made using artificial intelligence and were being circulated around Laguna Beach High School, school officials said. Laguna Beach High School's Principal, Jason Alleman, has announced that the investigation into AI-generated nude photos of high school students is under way. The photos may have been shared among students through text messages. The school has not identified the students responsible for creating or sharing the photos, nor have disclosed the number of victims. The incident is part of a larger trend of similar incidents involving AI-generated images of Taylor Swift, where fake pornographic images of Swift went viral on social media. The issue was highlighted when a 16-year-old student claimed that another student had created nude images of her.
Published : 4 weeks ago by Miranda Ceja in Tech
According to Principal Jason Alleman, the Laguna Beach Police Department is assisting the school district in the investigation of the incident. In a letter sent to parents Monday about the investigation into the photos, Aleman said "these incidents can have far-reaching impact on our campus culture."
"These actions not only compromise individual dignity but also undermine the positive and supportive environment we aim to foster at LBHS," he said in the letter. The photos might have been sharing among students through text messages, and parents were informed about the photos last week, he said.
"High school is hard enough, and to have to deal with something like this is just soul-crushing," Mary Torres told ABC7.
Laguna Beach High School is planning to hold panel discussions this week covering online privacy, legal and ethical considerations of sharing content, the impact of online behavior on future opportunities and relationships and managing digital footprints.
The school has not identified the students responsible for creating or sharing the photos. The school has not revealed the number of victims either. Several other Southern California schools in recent weeks have grappled with similar incidents. "We are required by law to keep student discipline matters confidential to protect the privacy and well-being of our students. In any situation that arises, the safety and security of our students is always our top priority. Simultaneously, it falls within our role as educators to guide students toward understanding the consequences of their actions, particularly in terms of their impact on peers and the wider campus community. High school is a pivotal time for shaping students, offering us the opportunity to nurture them into empathetic individuals who are mindful of the world around them. Maintaining a careful balance between accountability and empathy is essential as we navigate and address critical issues." Last month, five Beverly Hills eighth graders were expelled due to their involvement in the creation and dissemination of AI-generated nude photos in an incident where administrators identified 16 victims, all of whom were in 8th grade, administrators said.
The images included AI-generated nude bodies with other students' faces superimposed onto them, administrators said. And later that month, a 16-year-old Calabasas High School student and her mother sat down for TV interviews, where they told reporters that another sophomore student had created nude images of the girl. The girl said her now former friend filmed her in the shower and disseminated nude images of her to her classmates. School officials and police investigated and the case was handed off to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. AI image generators such as OpenAI's DALL-E use machine learning to generate brand-new images from a users' text prompt. For example, a user can ask the software for a picture of a sunset; the software knows how to make such an image because it has been "trained" using scores of sunset images that already exist on the web.
These tools can create "deepfakes," where a real-life person's likeness is used to create a kind of digital puppet, allowing them to be depicted doing or saying something they did not do or say in real life. The problem was highlighted recently when fake pornographic images of Taylor Swift went viral on social media. AI, used in combination with other software, allows for a broad range of sophistication when it comes to the creation of deepfakes — from crude-cut-and paste jobs to eerily convincing simulacra.
Topics: AI