Bloke secretly turns pic of glam girl into grownup AI vid then laughs in her face
A saleswoman says a stranger secretly photographed her during bar banter and used AI to make fake explicit images of her ‘making out’ with men – then showed her the results while laughing
Jade Helen(Image: @jade_helen/Instagram)
A glamorous woman has told of the sickening moment a group of strange men snapped her picture in a bar before using artificial intelligence (AI) to turn it into pornographic, fake content and laughed in her face.
Sales worker Jade Helen, 29, was enjoying a couple of glasses of wine with a close friend at a venue in Perth, Australia, last Friday, when a group of eight to 10 men struck up what seemed like harmless banter. But, Jade says, one of them secretly took her photo, fed it into an AI app and generated sexualised images showing her “making out” with several of the men.
“I had no idea he had taken a photo of me, then he put it into AI and altered the picture into sexualised content,” she told PerthNow. Jade continued: “One of the men had passed the photo around, actually showing it to me and my friend, and they were all just laughing about it.”
She has told of the sickening moment a group of stranger men snapped her picture in a bar(Image: @jade_helen/Instagram)
At first, she tried to brush it off in shock, but her friend made her realise the scale of the violation. She recalled: “(My friend) said to me, ‘They’ve completely degraded you and withdrew your consent from this whole interaction, and just used you as entertainment’ – that’s when I realised how messed up it was.”
The men also allegedly took a secret photo of her friend and created similar sexualised AI images. Jade reported the group to staff and then to Western Australia Police.
A group of stranger men used AI to turn a pic of her into explicit, fake content (Image: @jade_helen/Instagram)
Jade said: “The venue took it really seriously straight away, they said that’s not how they treat people and it’s not the culture they want in their bar.” The men were consequently banned.
But Jade was left stunned by the legal reality. A detective told her: “Unfortunately, the law and law enforcement can be slow and behind the ball.
“At this point, there is no law that determines artificial intelligence created photos or media.” As a result, Jade warned: “Given AI is so common nowadays, it means someone can just take an ordinary photo of you and within seconds, create something sexualised, degrading, or completely fabricated that looks really realistic.
At first, she tried to brush it off in shock(Image: @jade_helen/Instagram)
“You don’t even have to pose… you don’t even have to know the person who’s creating it, and that’s frightening.” After Jade spoke out on Instagram, she received messages urging her to contact the eSafety Commissioner, guidance she says she wishes police had provided.
“They acknowledged it was wrong but there was just no guidance for me,” she said. Then came a private DM from the man she says made the images.
“I made the AI picture as a joke… because we have a running joke,” he wrote, adding: “that was wrong of me and you didn’t deserve any of that.” Jade said that “running joke” claim terrified her most.
“Saying it’s a running joke tells me it’s not the first time he’s done this to women,” she said. “AI might be new, but respect isn’t.”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.
