(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) In what is doubtlessly the first of many such instances, an AI-generated deepfake pornography scandal has rocked a New Jersey high school, Breitbart reported Thursday.
Westfield High School in Westfield, New Jersey, has become the center of the controversy, wherein artificial intelligence constructed pornographic images of teenage girls, to be distributed among the boys of the high school.
The trouble sparked a police investigation, and has led to serious parental concerns.
At least one student reportedly used online software and photos of various girls to create deepfake nude photos of them. The student then shared those images in group chats.
Some school administrators were also allegedly depicted in the nude photos.
Mary Asfendis, the Westfield High School principal, penned an email to the school’s parents, expressing the gravity of the situation.
“This is a very serious incident,” Asfendis wrote.
“New technologies have made it possible to falsify images and students need to know the impact and damage those actions can cause to others,” she continued, emphasizing the need to teach children the appropriate use of technology.
Dorota Mani, a parent at the school whose 14-year-old daughter was a victim of the deepfakes, said that she does not know how she will cope with having a teenage daughter in the era of unrestricted AI.
“I am terrified by how this is going to surface and when,” she said, noting that she does not want her daughter to attend school with those who created the images.
“My daughter has a bright future and no one can guarantee this won’t impact her professionally, academically or socially.”
Shelley Brindle, the mayor of Westfield, also commented on the situation, calling it “hard to witness.”
Still, as troubles proliferate, the incompetent President Joe Biden has put himself in charge of establishing AI guardrails in a recent executive order, calling it a “serious risk to national security, national economic security or national public health and safety.”
