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San Francisco lawsuit goes after websites that create sexually explicit 'deepfakes'

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

San Francisco's city attorney filed a lawsuit this week. It targets 16 websites that use AI to create sexually explicit images of real people. Tech policy experts say this lawsuit is a novel legal approach to the problem. From member station KQED in San Francisco, Juan Carlos Lara reports.

JUAN CARLOS LARA, BYLINE: The lawsuit goes after what it calls some of the world's most popular websites to create sexually explicit deepfakes of women and girls. The websites allow users to upload pictures of real people, in some cases minors. The sites then employ open source AI models trained on pornographic images to make the subjects appear naked or engaged in sexual activity. City Attorney David Chiu announced the lawsuit, saying the sites violate multiple state and federal laws, including those on revenge and child pornography.

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DAVID CHIU: These images are used to bully, humiliate and threaten women and girls. The FBI has warned of an uptick in extortion schemes using AI-generated nonconsensual pornography. And the impact on victims has been devastating.

LARA: Chief Deputy City Attorney Yvonne Mere says she started the department's investigation after reading about this happening to teenage girls and imagining it happening to her own daughter.

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YVONNE MERE: And as a lawyer, I was frustrated. How can it be that this pernicious practice can go on without consequence?

LARA: Individual people who have used these websites have faced charges and lawsuits from victims. But Chiu's office describes this case as the first government lawsuit of its kind. Colleen Chien, co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, says what makes it unique is that it goes after the actual companies who make and distribute the images.

COLLEEN CHIEN: They're going after the entire business model, and so that's a new and untested strategy, which I think is frankly a healthy experiment in the ecosystem. And we'll see where it goes.

LARA: The lawsuit includes four named companies, one individual and scores of redacted names. The named defendants, including two American companies, another company based in the U.K. and another in Estonia, could not immediately be reached for comment. For NPR News, I'm Juan Carlos Lara in San Francisco. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Juan Carlos Lara