WASHINGTON – When Ellis, a 14-year-old from Texas, woke up one October morning with several missed calls and texts, they were all about the same thing: nude images of her circulating on social media.
That she had not actually taken the pictures did not make a difference, as artificial intelligence (AI) makes so-called “deepfakes” more and more realistic.
The images of Ellis and a friend, also a victim, were lifted from Instagram, their faces then placed on naked bodies of other people. Other students — all girls — were also targeted, with the composite photos shared with other classmates on Snapchat.
“It looked real, like the bodies looked like real bodies,” she told AFP. “And I remember being really, really scared… I’ve never done anything of that sort.”
As AI has boomed, so has deepfake pornography, with hyperrealistic images and videos created with minimal…
