Teachers report students using AI deepfakes to harass them

In short: Some teachers say students are using AI to make and share sexualized fake images and videos of them, and schools and platforms are struggling to respond.

What's going on

WIRED spoke with four educators who say they were targeted with “deepfakes,” which are fake photos or videos made with AI that can make someone look like they did something they never did (like a convincing photo edit that moves and talks).

One substitute teacher in Los Banos, California, Luis DeSantiago, said a fake lingerie photo of him spread on TikTok and Snapchat. He reported it to school administrators and later involved parents and police. He said the image kept resurfacing, even after he stopped taking assignments at a local middle school, and it appeared again at a high school where students shared it in class.

A middle school teacher told WIRED that a TikTok account impersonated her with videos that looked and sounded like her, including sexual statements. She said the account was taken down after students reported it, but she later faced escalating in-person harassment from a student she suspected was involved.

In the UK, a college staff member named Alice said a real video of her talking with a student was allegedly altered into a sexualized clip. She said it affected how she viewed her role as a mentor. Another teacher in Arizona, Luke Red, said students posted an AI-made image of him kissing another male teacher.

What to watch

Legal experts told WIRED that sharing sexual images of a teacher can be workplace sexual harassment, and in some cases may break laws against posting nonconsensual intimate images, even if the images are computer-generated. Social apps like Snapchat say this content is banned, but removing it quickly and finding who made it can still be difficult, especially when students share it privately in group chats.

Source: Wired