This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
A company’s reliance on artificial intelligence to prevent sextortion scams sets up an AI vs. AI clash between criminals and “good guys.”
Sextortion cases increased 322% between February 2022 and February 2023, according to the FBI, which recently said there’s been an additional significant uptick since April.
Innocent beach pictures or men’s bare-chested gym pictures can be twisted into sexually explicit, AI-generated “deepfakes” that are weaponized against panicked and embarrassed teens and preteens.
“Our technology is an AI platform that has been developed over 14 years … and can recognize images with video and an image in split seconds,” Litwin told Fox News Digital.
“The platform itself will also filter out in real time any explicit image as you’re browsing through a website or an app and really prevent a lot of pornography from appearing online.”
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“There’s no need to do this manually,” Litwin said. “In split seconds, the AI can help identify if there is improper material that they’re dealing with.”
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This is a simplified example of the ongoing chess match that AI developers and users will face as the technology advances and becomes more widely used and prevalent.
“Many victims, which have included minors, are unaware their images were copied, manipulated and circulated until it was brought to their attention by someone else.” At least a dozen sextortion-related suicides have been reported across the country, according to the latest FBI numbers from this year.
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Many victims are males between the ages of 10 and 17, although there have been victims as young as 7, the FBI said. Girls have also been targeted, but the statistics show a higher number of boys have been victimized.
That led to demands for money and escalated until Gavin ended his life.
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Sextortion isn’t new, but the number of cases has boomed since the pandemic. From 2021 to 2022, the FBI recorded a 463% increase in reported sextortion cases, and now open-source AI tools have simplified the process for predators, the FBI said.
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NCMEC also provides a free service called “Take It Down,” which works to help victims remove or stop the online sharing of sexually explicit images or videos.
The website is: https://takeitdown.ncmec.org/.