--- title: "Police Investigating AI-Generated Nudes of New Jersey High Schoolers" description: "Parents and local officials are unsure how to handle AI-generated nudes of teen girls that boys began circulating at a NJ high school." date: "2023-11-03" modified: "2023-11-03" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-deepfake-content-minors" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "consent" - "deepfake" - "legal" - "the digest" --- # Police Investigating AI-Generated Nudes of New Jersey High Schoolers ![Parents and local officials are unsure how to handle AI-generated nudes of teen girls that boys began circulating at a NJ high school.]() *Woman hiding under the blanket, chatting and surfing the internet with smart phone at late night on bed. Working late concept. Reading work email at late night. Busy city life. Working late at night. Online bullying and hate speech concept. Bad news. \Image: Oscar Wong/Getty Images\* ## Question Mark After AI-generated nudes of teen girls began circulating in a New Jersey high school, neither parents, school officials nor even local law enforcement have been able to figure out how to deal with it. As the [*Wall Street Journal* reports](), girls at a school in the affluent New York City suburb of Westfield learned weeks ago in October that AI-manipulated images of them were being shared in group chats by boys at their school. But thus far, there hasn't been much in the way of punishment — and it's still unclear who even made the fake nudes to begin with. When reached by the *WSJ*, a spokesperson Westfield High School confirmed that the incident had taken place, but declined to name any students involved to protect confidentiality. In one email sent on October 20, school principal Mary Asfendis called the debacle a "very serious incident," and said that she believed the images had been deleted and were no longer in circulation. The parents of the girls involved also took the situation to local police and even their state senator, but they don't seem to know what to do either. That's likely because, as the *WSJ* acknowledges, the dark side of AI — which now allows people to digitally "undress" unwitting subjects or create phony nudes of them with little more than an iPhone — has [progressed much faster than the law](). ## Slow Roll Thus far, there are [only a handful of states](), including [New York](), that have enacted laws that ban the distribution of faked porn or give those portrayed in them the right to civil lawsuits. Both the [White House]() and the [state of New Jersey]() have in recent weeks announced the creation of AI task forces generally, but those are more exploratory in nature, and any laws stemming from them will take a long time to enact. For the girls of Westfield, whose plight is jarringly similar to a [situation that happened in Spain in September](), it's unclear whether there will be any resolution and what it might look like. Some of them are uncomfortable with having to attend school with the people they suspect created and shared the images, who seem to have not yet faced any consequences. "We’re aware that there are creepy guys out there," one of the victims said during a meeting of impacted girls and their parents that the *WSJ* was granted access to, "but you’d never think one of your classmates would violate you like this." **More on abusive AI:** [*South Korea Sentences Man for Creating Child Abuse Images Using AI*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()