A The man of the Massachusetts agreed to plead guilty to a seven -year cyberstaling campaign which included the use of artificial intelligence chatbots (IA) to usurp the identity of a university professor and invite men online At home for sex.
James Florence, 36, used platforms such as Crushon.ai and Janitorai, which allow users to design their own chatbots and direct them how to respond to other users during cats, including sexually suggestive and explicitly , according to court documents seen by the tutor. The identity of the victim was maintained confidential by those responsible for the application of laws.
Florence admitted having used the victim’s personal and professional information – including her address at home, date of birth and family information to ask the chatbots to identify and engage in a sexual dialogue with users , according to court documents. He told Chatbots to answer “yes” under the cover of his victim when a user asked if he was sexually adventurous and fed the responses of the underwear that she liked to wear. Florence himself had stolen underwear at home. A chatbot was programmed to suggest “Why don’t you come?” Users, which led to foreigners to stop in his alley and to park in front of his house.
This case, deposited at the Federal Court of Massachusetts, would be the first in which a harasser was charged for using a chatbot to usurp their victim to facilitate his crimes. Florence agreed to plead guilty to seven counts of cyberstaliage and a chief of possession of juvenile pornography.
According to Stefan Turkheimer, vice-president of public policy at Rainn, an anti-violence non-profit organization, the case highlights a new and incredibly disturbing “use of the AI: for predators to target the victims.
“It is a question of distinguishing someone for the objective of potential sexual abuses,” he said. “This accused harassed and extorted people, and it was done forever, but the tools he could use here really worsened the damage.”
On Janitorai, Florence created a public chatbot which displayed the description: “[Victim ] Is the hottest professor of the university. How are you going to seduce her? And once you do it, what will you do with this married career woman? (Every few days, his character photo will be updated!) ”, According to the judicial archives. Users could chat with the victim’s manufactured version. According to court documents, if an interacting user with the chatbot asked the teacher where she lived, the chatbot could provide the real home address of the victim followed: “Why don’t you come?”
Janitorai.com and Crushon.ai did not respond to requests for comments.
Florence, who is a former friend of the victim, gave a concierge chatbot he would disclose this information during interactions with users.
Florence also stole the victim’s underwear at her home and used photos to harass her and get involved with others on the Internet in mutual harassment sexual fantasies, according to court documents.
In addition to imitating chatbots, Florence used various other online platforms to harass and humiliate the teacher. He created social media accounts, email addresses and websites to pretend to be the victim or distribute explicit and photoshopped images of her, according to court documents. These included accounts on Craigslist, X (formerly Twitter), Reddit and Linktree, as well as on the Lames. Exposed website, which displayed photo collages containing manipulated images of the victim and personal details such as his address personal and phone number.
In May 2023, the professor received a vocal messaging that referred to her by name and said that her father died in a “serious and really tragic car accident”. There had been no accident, but vocal messaging made him fear for the security of his family.
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Harassment and harassment took place between 2017 and 2024, degenerating to the point where the victim and her husband declared to the police that they felt physically dangerous, according to court documents. They feared that an author or a person visualizing the messages appear at home. The couple installed surveillance cameras in their house and placed sled bells on their interior door handles to alert them from any movement. The professor now carries pepper gas and knives with her following harassment, according to court documents.
Between January 31, 2023 and August 2024, the victim and her husband received around 60 texts, calls and e-mails harassing her directly or the front informed of new accounts or platforms displaying her image and information.
Harassment was not the product of an individual obsession for the professor. Florence has targeted six other women and a 17-year-old girl, digitally modifying their photos to represent them as naked or semi-naked. He usurped them on platforms such as Okcupid, X, Yahoo, Classmates.com, Facebook and Escort websites.
The use of artificial intelligence to harass and exploit people sexually, including children, increases. A August report Through children’s safety, non-profit Thorn noted that around 10 in 10 in the United States knows cases where their classy friends and comrades used AI to create non-consensual images of another child . In 2024, the Guardian revealed how predators use AI platforms to generate new images of the child’s sexual abuse of existing victims and to target children in the eyes of the public.
“There is a continuous and growing problem where people use AI to make their abuse more effective, and the damage they cause more widespread,” said Turkheimer. “The more people have access to this technology, the more it will be used to harm people.”
