Children as young as 11 to be taught about AI 'nudification' in schools
Children as young as 11 will be taught how to combat sexually explicit 'nudifications' - AI-generated or altered images or videos depicting individuals in intimate or sexual situations.
Listen to this article
Will Gardner, CEO of children's charity Childnet, told LBC about the rollout of lessons on what to do if someone has created an artificial image of you "to appear nude" without consent.
One girl told Mr Gardner "pressure to share images is there on you as you're growing up and you can make the choice - do I share one or not share one."
She added: "There is no safe side of the coin anymore. I can choose not to share it, but that doesn't mean there won't be an image of me."
Up to 47% of children aged 13-17 said that in the last year they have witnessed people their age editing photos of someone to make them sexual, a study by Childnet found in 2017.
Mr Gardner believed that the increase of easily accessible AI could only make this figure rise.
The CEO said: "The impact of this content isn't any less because it's not a real picture. It's the same.
"Your reputation and the impact on you emotionally will be exactly the same."
Childnet have created a sequence of three lessons to be used with learners aged 13-17. They said the class can be suitable for 11 and 12 year olds with adaptation.
Mr Gardner urged: "There's a real need to make sure that if young people are going to be using this technology, they are learning to use it safely."
"It’s very easy to scare the hell out of people with topics like this," he added.
"Particularly people don’t know about the technology and they can feel quite disempowered in terms of what they can do."
He added: "I think the message that we want to give out to people is there are things that you can do and there is advice out there and if they're looking for support that's available."
Support
If you are worried the image has been shared, Take It Down can help to remove online nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photos and videos taken before you were 18.
Childline offer a Report Remove service to help young people under 18 in the UK to confidentially report sexual images and videos of themselves and remove them from the internet.
You can also report this kind of content directly to the police.
Sexual images of children created using AI are classed as child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
