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AI Crime Education

Spain Sentences 15 Schoolchildren Over AI-Generated Naked Images (theguardian.com) 119

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A court in south-west Spain has sentenced 15 schoolchildren to a year's probation for creating and spreading AI-generated images of their female peers in a case that prompted a debate on the harmful and abusive uses of deepfake technology. Police began investigating the matter last year after parents in the Extremaduran town of Almendralejo reported that faked naked pictures of their daughters were being circulated on WhatsApp groups. The mother of one of the victims said the dissemination of the pictures on WhatsApp had been going on since July.

"Many girls were completely terrified and had tremendous anxiety attacks because they were suffering this in silence," she told Reuters at the time. "They felt bad and were afraid to tell and be blamed for it." On Tuesday, a youth court in the city of Badajoz said it had convicted the minors of 20 counts of creating child abuse images and 20 counts of offenses against their victims' moral integrity. Each of the defendants was handed a year's probation and ordered to attend classes on gender and equality awareness, and on the "responsible use of technology." [...] Police identified several teenagers aged between 13 and 15 as being responsible for generating and sharing the images. Under Spanish law minors under 14 cannot be charged but their cases are sent to child protection services, which can force them to take part in rehabilitation courses.
Further reading: First-Known TikTok Mob Attack Led By Middle Schoolers Tormenting Teachers
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Spain Sentences 15 Schoolchildren Over AI-Generated Naked Images

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  • Good (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    See subject

  • by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2024 @03:13PM (#64613751)
    A years probation and a bunch of required training? Add in the proviso that skipping the classes or breaking the probation rules is a ticket on the fast-train to a stay in juvi hall, and you’ve got the perfect consequence

    It’s hard enough to make the boys realize that society seriously dissapproves, public enough to deter copycatters, harsh enough to let the girls know that society is totally on their side, but it doesn’t permanently destroy the lives of a boy who makes an idiotic choice as a 14 year old.
  • I guess the gangs and porn peddlers now see that if they "convince" kids to produce masses of porn using AI they can make more of it and more money from it. Kids get a slap on the hand... but pity the victims, nope.
  • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2024 @04:26PM (#64614035) Homepage

    That word makes them sound like innocent little grade school kids.

    No, these were teenagers. They totally knew what they were doing, and knew better.

  • by Pezbian ( 1641885 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2024 @04:56PM (#64614117)

    I remember the days when actress' heads, including underage actresses, were photoshopped onto porn photos. AI has changed that game in a big way. Spain has decided how to classify images based on real people. Where does completely fictional material of that nature fall? Like anime characters or *searches mind for 3D game with realistic-looking teenage female character* that girl from Last of Us? Or, as an extreme example, the random kids running around in Skyrim?

    A lot of lines are going to have to be drawn in the sand over the next decade because this shit isn't going away. Elon Musk joked about robotic catgirls, but silicone love dolls have been around for over 20 years and the available "variety" is hair-raising. Utah, where I'm from, passed a law making such dolls illegal if they're child-like. In fact, I wonder what criteria are used. Height? Plenty of women are "fun size" or have Dwarfism. Bust size? Asian women tend to be lacking in that department. Pubic hair? That costs extra to install and complicates maintenance. Head size in relation to body size? Anime girls throw that out the window. Plus, if someone being unable to get one of those dolls leads them to harm a real child instead, that's obviously bad.

    We've got a lot of work to do, and the real work hasn't even started. Sex sells. Always has. Always will.

    • It's a purity spiral. It will end when no more power can over society can be squeezed out. That will happen when enough people realize the extent of the tyranny and start openly speaking against it despite the moral outrage.
    • by reanjr ( 588767 )

      You bring up a bunch of gray examples, but in this case, there's no gray area. The subjects are minors, so ipso facto, it's child porn. In the same way animation doesn't protect you from charges of child porn if the animation is clearly presenting children.

      Also, keep in mind that nudity is not pornography. So some of the examples (like video game models) are probably fine in some cases (producing a model) and not in others (making that model engage in sexually suggestive activity). At least in the U.S.,

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      There's an argument (not a very good one) that being famous comes with a certain amount of abuse, and people just have to accept it as the price of being a public figure. That is at least a choice for them, unlike having random boys at your school targeting you just for being in the same building or class.

  • I'm left speechless by some of the comments here. These are children being made the subject of child pornography, FFS. It's in no way defensible in any shape or form. It's intolerable.
    • what the kids did was wrong but its nothing new. kids have been altering images to shame others before computers where even a thing. but now use the word ai and everyone loses there minds.
  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2024 @06:19PM (#64614263)

    I get the AI hype etc., but if the images were good enough to fool you into thinking they were real... what if some or even all of them are? Maybe the girls took some nude selfies for their boyfriends... Who turned out to be jackasses.

    The whole reaction, while necessary because of the harm done, just reinforces that a naked image is harmful which is regrettable in my opinion.

    • Not to minimize the pain that people feel, but it does seem that if nudity was not a big deal, then this would not be a big deal. It does seem simpler to get rid of all the shame laws and let people go nude if they want. Maybe down the line nudity won't be a big deal. Nudity shaming seems a uniquely human trait that no other animal feels.
      • Shame is a useful tool for preserving enough social conformity that large numbers of people can coexist in (relative) harmony.

        But while I've got the nudity taboo myself, I definitely recognize it as counter-productive overall. Well, except for something between people and whatever they might sit on... you really don't want to be the second nude person on a city bus seat on a hot day, right?

      • Shame evolved to keep tribal apes functional; it's too bad we can't evolve away from the tribalism...

        YES, nudity should be shame-free and legal like pot smoking... stop the losing wars!

        People think sexually no matter what you do to try to stop them-- they will imagine plenty you can't stop and they will draw pictures if they want... photoshop if they can and now AI if they can't photoshop. I'm fine with it except I'd much rather the kids learn to imagine or at least can learn to use photoshop or learn to d

  • What exactly is the crime in this case?

    The original ban on child pornography, for example — itself an obvious Freedom of Speech violation — was justified by the need to protect the minors from the abuse itself. Because the only way to produce such photos and videos was to commit the (statutory) rape shown therein.

    But if it is AI-generated, who exactly is the victim? It may be in poor taste, but it is — or ought to be — protected by the Freedom of Expression concept...

    An AI-generated

    • The original ban on child pornography, for example â" itself an obvious Freedom of Speech violation

      I love how you state spicy opinions as facts. No it is not "obviously a Freedom of Speech violation".

      But if it is AI-generated, who exactly is the victim?

      The actual literal victims in TFA are the victims. Tricky concept!

      It may be in poor taste, but it is â" or ought to be â" protected by the Freedom of Expression concept...

      At the minimum it's defamation. Such has never been protected by "freed

      • by mi ( 197448 )

        No it is not "obviously a Freedom of Speech violation".

        Of course, it is! We choose to exempt some speech — like defamation — from the protections, but, generally, any time one is prosecuted for saying, rather than doing, something, their Freedom of Speech is affected. By definition.

        The actual literal victims in TFA are the victims

        How? What exactly has happened to them? Were they beaten? Were they robbed? Were they denied access anywhere? Can I still draw a caricature of someone in your world? Wh

        • How were they the victims? Read TFA.

          I mean that's just the usual laziness on your part.

          The really special bit and this is marvelous is that you put a prompt into an AI image generator and forgot to check if it actually did what you ask. And you double down because you know what prompt you used but were too lazy to even look at the images!

          The thing is I don't need to read the description because I have eyes and a brain and I can see what's in an image without being told.

          • by mi ( 197448 )

            How were they the victims? Read TFA.

            Thus begins TFA:

            A court in south-west Spain has sentenced 15 schoolchildren to a yearâ(TM)s probation for creating and spreading AI-generated images of their female peers in a case that prompted a debate on the harmful and abusive uses of deepfake technology.

            Police began investigating the matter last year after parents in the Extremaduran town of Almendralejo reported that faked naked pictures of their daughters were being circulated on WhatsApp groups.

            Just as I conc

            • Get it? Likeness

              Back in the real world, most people recognize that defamation is a thing. In other words saying something untrue about someone can be harmful. If porn can be speech, then it can be defamation too.

              but it is not â" or should not be â" a crime

              It is quite clearly a crime. You are literally denying reality to say otherwise. As to whether it should be: very very few people think it shouldn't and saying so with lots of emphasis using italics doesn't actually constitute an argument to the

  • It's the words always used in such news articles right? Why such obvious biases / framing?
  • Using AI to generate naked pictures of your schoolmates should lead to charges of producing and distributing child pornography. This is the appropriate measured response. If a kids life is ruined, we can at least take comfort that we stopping others from ruining the lives of their school mates by making it clear that this sort of behavior is not tolerated at all; like taking a gun to school.

  • The stupidity is breathtaking.
    The tech is there, it will be used.
    The photos are not real.
    Get over it.
    Sounds like primitive people afraid the laterna magica steals their soul.

  • First of all, there is no question that what these kids did was wrong and harmful. I imagine that for a teenage girl, something like this could be extremely distressing. These kids knew or should have known the distress they would cause, but they did it anyway.

    But calling police and taking this to court is a completely wrong way of handling this. By all means expel these boys from school or apply some similar punishment. But prosecuting this under

    creating child abuse images

    - obviously a law meant to deal with paedophiles - is ridic

  • What, no fake male nudes made by girls? I thought girls were just like boys.

  • I was under the impression that if a child misbehaved, this was a failure of parenting. Like, the parent could take away the phone, PC, whatever - you know, like, do their one job.

    Since when is court the first option? Also why wouldn't the court come down on the parents first, if they'd presumably been told to take responsibility?

    Not being snarky, I just want to know what the thinking is behind this, that the parents weren't even mentioned. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

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