Police open investigation after students report AI-generated nudes to school district
Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on February 26, 2024
(BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.) — The Beverly Hills Police Department said it is investigating after a Southern California middle school reported last week that students were allegedly involved in creating and sharing nude images generated using artificial intelligence that featured the faces of fellow students.
“The Beverly Hills Unified School District notified the Beverly Hills Police Department, and a police report was taken. The investigation is ongoing,” Beverly Hills Police Lt. Andrew Myers told ABC News in a statement.
Beverly Hills Unified School District confirmed to ABC News that it received reports from students last week “about the creation and dissemination by other students of Artificial Intelligence generated (AI) images that superimposed the faces of our students onto AI-generated nude bodies.”
The district didn’t specify the number of students impacted by the AI-generated imagery, the existence of which ABC News has not been able to confirm, but said in a statement that “more victims are being identified” and that they are “taking every measure to support those affected and to prevent any further incidents.”
“We want to make it unequivocally clear that this behavior is unacceptable and does not reflect the values of our school community,” the district said in its statement, which was co-signed by Beverly Vista Middle School Principal Dr. Kelly Skon, Beverly Hills Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Michael Bregy, and Mark Mead, the executive director of school safety at the Beverly Hills Unified School District.
“Although we are aware of similar situations occurring all over the nation, we must act now,” the statement continued. “This behavior rises to a level that requires the entire community to work in partnership to ensure it stops immediately.”
The school district said that if “any criminal offenses are discovered, they will be addressed to the fullest extent possible” under the California Education Code, adding that “any student found to be creating, disseminating, or in possession of AI-generated images of this nature will face disciplinary actions, including, but not limited to, a recommendation for expulsion.”
AI photography has been on the rise in the last couple of years, and explicit AI-generated images have been a growing concern in schools and among parents, teachers and administrators.
Last November, Francesca Mani, a 14-year-old New Jersey student, and her mother Dorota Mani spoke to “Good Morning America” after a student at Westfield High School, which Francesca attended, allegedly used artificial intelligence to create nude images of the teen and other girls.
AI-generated images of Taylor Swift even drew a White House response last month, and last October, police in Spain warned that young girls have increasingly become targets of fabricated AI-generated nude images as well.
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