BATON ROUGE - The Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office is charging a middle school student with allegedly sharing explicit photos of other students created by artificial intelligence.

Since the story broke, there have been plenty of questions surrounding AI use, including who can be held responsible in a case where the material is AI-generated.

"Is it protected speech and art, or is it illicit? The legislature has said it's illicit, and is it illegal, and is it a felony, and what do we do with that if it's a conviction?", Attorney Franz Borghardt said.

Borghardt says this case out of Lafourche Parish is not the first AI explicit imagery case or the last.

"A photograph can be innocent and turn into something very much not innocent," Borghardt said.

Borghardt says AI use for exploitation is something that people should be aware of.

"I think you start having topics about, well, is it human trafficking? Is it the distribution of pornography? Or is it not because it's not real? At the end of the day, the counter argument is going to be, well, this is the taking of something and generating it into something that's not authentic, and not real," he said.

Ibrahim Baggili, professor and chair of computer science at LSU, says he is concerned about the abundance and availability of AI systems right now.

"You can just go onto the web and you can create a fake video, you clone somebody's voice from a 2-second or 3-second clip, is that concerning? Yes, have you seen them being used negatively? Absolutely," Baggili said.

Baggili says there are some things on the technical level that can help with preventing AI misuse.

"One is building guardrails within the system, so those are called technical guardrails, so that they don't produce images and videos that they shouldn't be producing," he said.

Lafourche Parish School District Superintendent Jarod Martin says in a statement:

The Lafourche Parish School Board is dedicated to a mission centered on providing a safe, healthy, and nurturing learning environment for all students, and this mission is reflected in values that prioritize the well-being and success of every child.

Our commitment to student safety and our commitment to the consistent application of consequences are the bedrock and foundation upon which every decision is made. We understand the public’s interest in this matter; however, federal law, specifically the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), strictly prohibits us from releasing or discussing any specific student's disciplinary records. We can assure you that all violations of our student code of conduct, including acts of violence and distribution of pornographic material, are immediately and thoroughly investigated and are met with adequate, swift, and consistent consequences.  

Any and all allegations of criminal misconduct on our campuses are immediately reported to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office. After reviewing this case, the evidence suggests that the school did, in fact, follow all of our protocols and procedures for reporting such instances. This incident remains under investigation by LPSO at this time. 

Unfortunately, in this case, there is a tremendous amount of misinformation and omissions of fact that present a one-sided story that fails to illustrate the totality and complex nature of this particular incident and the district’s response. We have never and will never steer from our mission of ensuring a safe and healthy learning environment for all students.