With cases of harm from fake nude photos made using artificial intelligence (AI) mounting, a teenage girl in the United States has filed a lawsuit against an AI developer.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 16th (local time), a 17-year-old girl living in New Jersey filed a lawsuit against AI/Robotics Venture Strategy 3, the developer of the AI-generated software "Cloth Off."
The girl also added Telegram to the list of defendants, saying the messenger app enabled access to Cloth Off through an automated program.
According to the WSJ, when she was 14, the girl posted a photo of herself in a swimsuit on her Instagram account. A male classmate in her high school allegedly used Cloth Off to turn the photo into a fake nude image, the girl said.
Some boys in the same class reportedly used AI tools to create fake nude photos of several girls and shared them in a group chat.
The girl who filed the lawsuit said she lives in fear that her fake nude photo could spread online, and she worries that photos of herself and other girls could be used to train Cloth Off's AI. She is asking the court to order Cloth Off's operator to delete and destroy all nude images it holds without the subjects' consent and to bar the use of those images to train AI models.
Cloth Off's operating company is in the British Virgin Islands, and its operators are said to live in Belarus. If they do not appear in court or respond to the suit, the plaintiff expects the court could block use of the software in the United States.
According to the WSJ, links to Cloth Off are also being used on illegal websites as a tool for producing child pornography. In response, San Francisco District Attorney David Chiu filed suit last year against Cloth Off and 16 major deepfake and nude sites, shutting down more than 10 of them.
Chiu is continuing his lawsuit against Cloth Off. He said, "We will not stop until every operator is held accountable."