--- title: "Schoolchildren Sentenced for AI-Generating Nudes of Their Classmates" description: "A Spanish court has sentenced 15 teenagers to one year of probation for using AI to create fake nude images of female classmates." date: "2024-07-12" modified: "2024-07-12" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/schoolchildren-sentenced-ai-nudes-classmates" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "deepfakes" - "nonconsensual deepfakes" - "the digest" --- # Schoolchildren Sentenced for AI-Generating Nudes of Their Classmates ![A Spanish court has sentenced 15 teenagers to one year of probation for using AI to create fake nude images of female classmates.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Perp Walk A Spanish court has sentenced 15 teenagers to one year of probation for [using AI to create fake nude images]() of female classmates, [*The Guardian* reports](). The perpetrators, all aged 13 to 15, were convicted in Badajoz, Spain on 20 counts of creating child abuse images and 20 counts of "offenses against their victims' moral integrity," according to the *Guardian.* They were tried as minors, and their collective conviction marks one of the first in a growing pool of cases involving minors and the creation and dissemination of nonconsensual, AI-driven deepfake pornography in middle and high schools. "The sentence notes that it has been proved," the court told the *Guardian* in a statement, "that the minors used artificial intelligence applications to obtain manipulated images of \[other minors\] by taking girls' original faces from their social media profiles and superimposing those images on the bodies of naked female bodies." ## Case by Case News of the incident surfaced last September when the Spanish newspaper [*El Pais* reported that]() a cohort of school-aged girls had discovered that classmates had created sexually explicit AI-generated images of them and circulated those photos throughout four schools via two WhatsApp groups. "Mom, they say there's a naked photo of me going around," one impacted student told her mother, as quoted by *El Pais*. "That they did it with an artificial intelligence app. I'm scared." At the time of the *El Pais* report, prosecutors were still investigating whether AI-generated nude images of minors, also generated by minors, constituted a crime. In the US and abroad, laws and regulations that shroud the use of AI to generate fake nude images often live in legal gray area — it's an obviously repugnant and invasive act that can leave lasting negative impacts on victims, but not always necessarily *illegal*. This grayness has also been reflected in uncertain and flat-footed school responses, which in some cases have been heavily criticized. Following a recent incident at an [affluent New Jersey high school](), for example, school officials were accused of attempting to sweep wrongdoing under the rug. "It seems as though the Westfield High School administration and the district," Dorota Mani, the mother of an impacted student, at a school board meeting in March, [according to an April *New York Times* report](), "are engaging in a master class of making this incident vanish into thin air." But as the number of incidents continues to rise, whether such incidents are considered criminal, and what punishment looks like, continues to take firmer shape. In March, [*Wired* reported that]() two Miami teenagers were [charged with felonies]() for creating AI nudes of classmates. The same month, the FBI [declared]() that AI-generated sexual imagery of minors is indeed illegal. Sadly, though, as laws and norms around emerging AI technologies continue to develop, we're likely to see more similar cases. **More on AI deepfakes:** [*Police Investigating AI-Generated Nudes of New Jersey High Schoolers*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()