Pensacola teen testifies before FL Senate on AI nude image ban

Pensacola high school student Lucy Adams Stevenson will testify today before the Florida Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee in support of Sen. Don Gaetz’s SB 1180. She will testify at 12:30 p.m. CST.

  • SB 1180 would prohibit the creation of lewd imagery or depictions involving a child and the creation of nude photos involving identifiable persons. The bill is a reaction to how a male Pensacola high school student used an artificial intelligence app last fall to create fake nude images of several female students. The male student wasn’t arrested because he didn’t distribute the photos. SB 1180 would close that loophole. There is a House companion bill, HB 757.

BACKGROUND: In January, I interviewed Lucy Adams and her parents, Eric and Carrie Stevenson, about how she became an unwitting victim when her social media photos were manipulated using AI technology to create fake nude images. Read more.

  • She first learned about the situation when a friend alerted her to a circulating video showing doctored photos of multiple female students. Despite following standard social media safety practices by only allowing known peers to access her accounts, Stevenson and several classmates were targeted by a male student who used their regular photos to create the fake images. The incident exposed significant gaps in current legislation, as Florida law addresses distribution but not the creation of such content.

The Stevenson family has advocated for legislative reform to criminalize the creation of AI-generated fake nude images without consent. Sen. Don Gaetz took up their cause.

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Author: Rick Outzen

Rick Outzen is the publisher/owner of Pensacola Inweekly. He has been profiled in The New York Times and featured in several True Crime documentaries. Rick also is the author of the award-winning Walker Holmes thrillers. His latest nonfiction book is “Right Idea, Right Time: The Fight for Pensacola’s Maritime Park.”