Two private school boys get probation for using AI to create 350 fake nudes of their classmates

Two teenage boys who used artificial intelligence to create fake nude photos of their classmates at a tony private school in Pennsylvania received probation Wednesday after dozens of victims described the images’ traumatizing effect on them.

The boys were 14 at the time. They admitted this month that they made about 350 images, showing at least 59 girls under 18, along with other victims who so far have not been identified.

Authorities said the boys took images of the girls from school photos, yearbooks, Instagram, TikTok and FaceTime chats in 2023 and 2024, and morphed them with images of adults depicting nudity or sexual activity.

More than 100 students and parents from Lancaster Country Day School were in court to hear victims describe the shock of having to identify their own faces in pornographic photos to detectives. Juvenile proceedings in Pennsylvania are normally closed, but this was opened by the judge, providing an unusual opportunity for the community to be seen and heard.

They described the fallout — anxiety attacks, a loss of trust, problems focusing on schoolwork and a fear that the images may someday surface in unexpected ways.

“I will never understand why they did this,” one victim told Judge Leonard Brown, saying it “destroyed my innocence.”

One young woman told Brown “how excruciating it is to bring these feelings up again and a...