ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — With artificial intelligence advancing every day, the FBI says the low cost, ease and lack of regulation around AI create opportunities for criminals.
Investigators say one Tampa Bay area woman found, though, that law enforcement is aware of the issue and knows how to spot the fakes.
What You Need To Know
A St. Petersburg woman has been accused of calling police to report a burglary and sexual assault using an AI-generated photo of the perpetrator
AI experts warn that as the technology gets better, law enforcement will see challenges they never have before
Experts advise using ChatGPT and other products so you can understand how they work and what they can do
On Oct. 7, Brooke Schinault called St. Petersburg police saying someone broke into her home and knocked her to the ground.
“We took all the information we could at the time, she provided us with images as proof, and then nothing — we continued on with our investigation,” said Ashley Limardo, public information specialist with the St. Petersburg Police Department.
Later that day, though, Limardo said Schinault called back.
“Saying that oh, well, actually she forgot to let us know that she was also sexually battered by this person,” Limardo said. “So, our officers went out a second time.”
She said the female detective assigned to the case realized there was something off with the photo Schinault provided.
“She received information on this case and was going through the evidence immediately when she saw that one picture,” Limardo said. “She was able to recognize it was part of the trend, and then that’s what completely changed the course of the investigation.”
According to court documents, investigators say they found digital evidence that showed the photo was created by ChatGPT days before the alleged burglary and sexual assault took place.
Police said Schinault tried to use a recent TikTok trend to her advantage.
They say people are taking pictures of their living rooms and imputing the pictures into ChatGPT. From there, they ask AI to add someone else into the picture, and send altered photos to their loved ones to get a laugh.
But this situation, police said, was no laughing matter. Investigators say Schinault allegedly used that tactic to create a photo of the suspect — a suspect who didn’t exist.
St. Petersburg police said they’ve never seen anything like this.
“It can be very dangerous,” Limardo said. “Especially in a sense of what if this person had matched the description of someone in our town or they tried to claim it was someone, now we’re going after that one person.”
Schinault was arrested and charged with two counts of false reporting of a crime. She is currently out of jail on bonds totaling $1,000.
Professor Dr. John Licato teaches at the University of South Florida’s Billeni College of AI, Cybersecurity and Computing. As long as technology has been around, Licato said there have always been bad actors on the internet.
“When I hear that particular story, my immediate thought is, ‘What’s the motivation? Why would anyone actually do this?’” Licato said.
But when it comes to realistic creations made by AI, Licato said the public needs a crash course in what’s possible.
“We need to increase the amount of AI literacy amongst the general public for reason like exactly this case,” he said. “The cops, they saw the memes, they saw the TikTok trend and, in a sense, that was a form of AI literacy. Because now they realize this is possible, so they know to look for it in the future.”
As artificial intelligence technology becomes better, Licato said that it’s important for people to try it themselves, so they know what’s possible.
Without recognizing that trend, police may not have been able to catch on to what Schinault allegedly did.
In Hillsborough County, deputies tracked down 19-year-old Sammarth Gautam after he transformed photos from social media of clothed girls he knew into AI generated nude photos.
He posted eight of these photos online. The Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office provided Spectrum News with video of him being questioned.
“Is there a specific reason why this happened,” the detective said in interrogation tapes provided to Bay News 9.
“So, I was just really starting to hear things about AI and the different things that it could do,” Gautam said in his interrogation. “And I know I shouldn’t have, but I kind of got curious, and I just wanted to use the technology to see what it could do.”
Prosecutors ultimately charged him with 16 counts of promoting altered sexual depictions without consent. Gautam took a plea deal that landed him behind bars for 12 days.
“We do have to watch out and make sure that we put proper safeguards to help protect people,” Licato said.
Licato said that while the technology to do what Gautam did isn’t new, it’s advancing.
He said society is being forced to address questions about what is considered acceptable use and acceptable regulation.
Using regulations involving vehicles, Licato said, “They made it so there was the right level of balance between restrictions and guidance. I think that we need that with any new technology.”
Bay News 9 attempted to contact Schinault for this story, but she did not respond to requests for comment.
Officials said Gautam has since been picked by immigration enforcement officials and is currently awaiting deportation in an ICE holding facility in New Mexico.