Creating nude deepfakes is rampant among young people — and AI safety education is lacking

Adolescents Are Making Nude Deepfakes in Droves — and Almost Nobody at School Is Teaching Them How to Stay Safe

Earthguardiansonline.com – A quiet epidemic is unfolding in bedrooms across the country. Teenagers are using generative artificial intelligence to produce explicit images and short videos of themselves — sometimes of classmates — and circulating them through messaging apps and social platforms. Meanwhile, the vast majority of schools have not yet addressed how young people should navigate the digital landscape where such content lives. The gap between what kids are doing online and what they are being taught about it is widening, and the consequences of closing that gap late could be severe.

What the Data Shows

A recent survey conducted by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco–based nonprofit focused on children’s media and education, polled 13- to 17-year-olds and found that only 30 percent had ever had a classroom conversation about using AI safely. That single figure encapsulates a broader absence: lessons on how chatbots work, how to verify their answers, and how to protect personal data in an era where machines can generate convincing images and text in seconds.

“For the most part, they’re just not happening yet,” said Michael Robb, head of research at Common Sense Media and coauthor of the study.

Robb acknowledged a methodological caveat: students may simply not recognize which parts of their curriculum count as “AI instruction.” The organization also lacks data on how effective the small slice of AI teaching that does occur actually is. Still, the headline number points in one direction — classrooms are largely silent on the subject.

The same survey revealed that 70 percent of teens now use AI tools to complete homework assignments. Parents watching their children paste prompts into chatbots at the kitchen table have long suspected this. What the data confirms is not merely that kids are using the technology, but that they are doing so without structured guidance on its limits, its biases, or its risks.

The Deepfake Problem No One Is Talking About

While much public debate about AI and schools has fixated on whether students are “cheating” with chatbots, a more intimate and arguably more damaging phenomenon is receiving far less attention. Generative AI now lets anyone produce photorealistic nude images or short clips of a person who never consented to being photographed. These nude deepfakes — AI-generated pictures or videos that are pornographic or that make a subject appear undressed — have become, in the words of one expert, almost routine adolescent behavior.

“There is a fundamental underestimation and probably adult misconception about how often and how familiar adolescents are with using Gen AI,” said Dr. Chad Steel, an adjunct professor of digital forensics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, who was not involved in the Common Sense Media study.

Steel emphasized that because the phenomenon is so new, researchers cannot yet map its long-term psychological effects on victims. What is known from decades of work on child sexual abuse material, however, is that victims are sometimes located, contacted, or tracked down years later by individuals who have accessed their images. In the deepfake context, predators can threaten to forward explicit images to a teenager’s parents, teachers, or friends unless the victim pays money or meets other demands.

The downstream harms extend well beyond embarrassment. Intimate images that end up online can complicate dating, hinder job prospects, and elevate the risk of sexual assault, depression, and suicide. A teenager who creates or shares a nude deepfake at fifteen may be dealing with its social and emotional fallout at twenty-five.

Why Teens Feel Comfortable Doing This

Part of the explanation is familiarity. Many young people already use shopping or fashion apps that let them “try on” virtual clothing by displaying their avatar in different outfits. That experience normalizes the idea of manipulating one’s own image digitally. The leap from a swimsuit rendered on a stylized figure to a fully nude composite, however, is enormous — and most adolescents have not been walked through that distinction.

“Kids certainly don’t understand how to protect themselves, and that these images may be permanent, and may be out there forever,” Steel said.

Once a sexualized image is posted, anyone with access can save it to a private archive or personal device. Removing it from every corner of the internet becomes, in practice, impossible. The permanence of digital content is a lesson that few curricula currently deliver.

What Parents Can Do Starting Now

The conversation does not need to wait for a school to schedule it. Parents can begin several practical steps immediately:

Explain the difference between virtual try-ons and real exposure. A child who has spent years swapping outfits on a fashion app may not grasp that generating a nude image of themselves is categorically different from previewing a jacket. Make that distinction explicit.

Set a clear rule: never create, share, or engage with nude deepfakes. This applies whether the image features the child themselves or someone else. Encourage them to ask before forwarding any image they received, and to treat unsolicited explicit content as a reason to reach out to a trusted adult.

Teach privacy hygiene around ordinary photos. Once a teenager posts a casual selfie to a public account, anyone with access to that image can use AI to composite their face onto a nude body. Steel recommends that younger children and teens post photos only to private, trusted circles — close friends, family groups — rather than open feeds where strangers can view and download them.

Normalize the conversation early. These discussions should begin at younger ages, before the technology becomes a default tool in a teenager’s daily life. Waiting until a child is sixteen or seventeen to explain how generative AI works, how deepfakes are made, and why digital permanence matters means starting after the risk has already materialized.

The Broader Implication

The absence of AI-safety instruction in schools is not merely a curriculum gap; it is a protective gap. Young people are already inside the ecosystem — using chatbots for homework, generating images for fun, posting photos to platforms where algorithms amplify reach. Without structured guidance on privacy, verification, and digital permanence, they are navigating a landscape where the stakes include their bodies, their reputations, and their long-term mental health. The question is no longer whether schools and families should talk about AI safety. The question is how long they can afford to wait.