Attorneys protesting a 13-year-old girl’s expulsion from a Louisiana middle school at a heated school board meeting this month felt they had a compelling argument: The student, who was punished for starting a fight on a school bus, was trying to knock away a boy’s phone, they said. He had been sharing fake nude images of her generated by artificial intelligence.
Attorneys protesting a 13-year-old girl’s expulsion from a Louisiana middle school at a heated school board meeting this month felt they had a compelling argument: The student, who was punished for starting a fight on a school bus, was trying to knock away a boy’s phone, they said. He had been sharing fake nude images of her generated by artificial intelligence.
“What’s going on here, I’ll be quite frank, is nothing more than disgusting,” Matthew Ory, an attorney for the girl, said at the meeting.
“Her image was taken by artificial intelligence and manipulated and manufactured to be child pornography,” he added.
The exchange about the incident at Sixth Ward Middle School in Thibodaux, Louisiana, highlighted the growing national problem of AI-powered abuse. It also led parish authorities to release details Monday about an ongoing investigation into the incident — including the decision to charge a middle school boy under a Louisiana law enacted last year banning the sharing of AI-generated nudes.
The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office declined to share additional details about the minor, who was charged in September with 10 counts of unlawful dissemination of images created by artificial intelligence. The offense is generally punishable by up to six months in custody and a fine of up to $750. It’s unclear whether that sentence would apply to minors.
“The rise of A.I. has made it easier for anyone to alter or create such images with little to no training or experience,” Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said in a statement. “This incident highlights a serious concern that all parents should address with their children.”
Reports have emerged across the nation of minors becoming victims of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, sometimes generated by their peers. Not all of them have led to charges. Researchers have long warned that AI tools, which can alter photos to “undress” subjects or impose the faces of minors onto nude bodies, are exacerbating the spread of abusive imagery online — and those tools are becoming easier for teenagers to find and use.
“While it’s deeply concerning, I don’t think it’s surprising to see minors using tools and technologies in these harmful ways,” said Amanda Goharian, a senior research manager at Thorn, a nonprofit that researches digital sexual abuse against children. “… What AI technologies do, is it scales the ability to harm exponentially.”
Benjamin Comeaux, another attorney representing the 13-year-old girl, said the incident occurred in late August. His client was among several girls who complained to school officials one morning that several other students were spreading fake nude images of them, he said. The images showed real photos of the girls, including selfies, overlaid with nude bodies using AI, Comeaux said.
Students teased the girls about the images throughout the day. Administrators reported the incident to the school resource officer, Comeaux said.
On the school bus ride home, several boys continued to share the AI-made nude images of the 13-year-old girl, and the girl struck one of the students sharing the images, Comeaux said. She was later expelled for starting the fight.
Comeaux and Ory said school administrators should have acted more quickly after the girl’s morning complaint and should have prevented her and the students she accused of sharing the images from riding the bus home together.
“It’s the adults that failed this juvenile,” Comeaux said. “… These people received the complaint; they did not take it seriously because they didn’t see the image.”
Lafourche Parish School District Superintendent Jarod Martin said in a statement that the school followed all its procedures for reporting criminal misconduct in the case and that “all violations of our student code of conduct, including acts of violence and distribution of pornographic material, are immediately and thoroughly investigated and are met with adequate, swift and consistent consequences.”
Lafourche Parish detectives began investigating the incident the day it was reported, the sheriff’s office said. It added that it announced details of the investigation and charges this week because the school board meeting drew attention to the case.
The sheriff’s office did not state if the person charged was the same student who was struck by the girl. The girl will not face charges, and additional arrests and charges in the investigation are possible, it said.
Alex Stamos, a cybersecurity researcher and lecturer at Stanford University, said “nudifier” apps have become more accessible as AI image-generation tools improve and the technology spreads.
“This has gone from something where you had to be technically sophisticated enough to download code and run it yourself to there being a number of commercial services where you can purchase [child sexual abuse material] or you can generate [it] on demand,” he said.
Goharian, of Thorn, said young people aged 13 to 20 surveyed by the nonprofit for a March study reported easily finding AI tools to create nudes online.
“They described finding the technologies through social media, ads, through search engines and even within their device app stores,” she said.
The charges filed against the middle-schooler in Louisiana come after a years-long effort by states to pass laws targeting AI-generated nudes. Lawmakers in Washington state rallied to pass such a law last year after a 2023 incident where high school students in Issaquah created and shared AI nudes of their peers and drew national controversy, but there were no criminal charges or arrests.
The 13-year-old girl at Sixth Ward Middle School whose photos were used to create the AI-generated nudes is allowed to rejoin classes but will be on probation until late January, according to Comeaux, her attorney. While on probation, she won’t be able to participate in sports or extracurricular activities.
“She will continue to suffer because of the school’s failure to act,” Comeaux said.
The post Louisiana middle schooler charged with sharing fake AI nudes of schoolmate
appeared first on Washington Post.
