Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

Fall 12-4-2025

Faculty Advisor(s)

Micol Hebron, Rachel Lord

Abstract

When generative artificial intelligence (AI) first surfaced and broke into the public sphere, my immediate concern was in its development, implementation, and harmful applications. I was not surprised when deepfake technology rapidly advanced alongside these new developments and impacted women and children worldwide. Disproportionately, they have been made victims of intimate media forgery as early as the 1990s, with an unprecedented uptick in recent years as a direct result of these developments. In response, I wrote "Deepfake, Real Harm: Protecting Children in the Age of AI", analyzing data specifically regarding child sexual abuse material (CSAM) created with artificial intelligence while urging legislators and community members to push for regulation in an effort to combat it. Two years later, children are still treated as peripheral when the topic of technology is centered. U.S. law and policy specific to these issues are moving unhurried while more children are harmed due to its absence. In light of the growing acceptance and integration of AI into every aspect of our daily lives, it is crucial to shift the conversation to advocate for the use of technology that will directly counteract these issues. As such, this paper and presentation explore the vast potential for AI to be used in the reduction of Internet crimes against children, in stark contrast to the way it has been used to increase it.

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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