BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – The Louisiana Board of Regents met Tuesday to discuss emerging technology threats like artificial intelligence and deepfakes, and what changes higher education systems need to make to protect students from power-based violence.
Anyone can take a picture and use ChatGPT or another AI image-generating program to create content with a prompt, creating a problem higher education systems are learning to respond to.
“People can post anonymously and so the inability to actually determine who is the perpetrator of some of these offenses and to address that in a way that makes the victim whole, I think is something that is impactful for schools that they need to address that as well,” Alisha Carter Harris, senior consultant with TNC, a risk management solutions company, said.
Current protections and emerging trends
While Louisiana law already includes some protections for using someone’s image for AI-generated material, Carter Harris said it’s important to stay on top of trends.
The panel examined different national and international cases where AI was used in sex abuse crimes. Carter Harris cited an example from June at Northern Illinois University, where a student allegedly had 20,000 images of AI-generated child sex abuse material stored on campus with plans to sell it.
Proposed solutions
One suggestion was to find a way to flag prompts typed into AI programs, similar to how certain Google searches are flagged for law enforcement.
Students on most college campuses are required to go through training explaining how to identify hazing. State Senator Regina Barrow suggested expanding that to other forms of power-based violence.
“We need to make sure that we are making all of these days a priority on our campuses with our students,” Barrow said.
Student input sought
Barrow also wants to organize a panel discussion with students from each school system for the next meeting to get feedback directly from them on what changes need to be made.
“There are, I think, minor things that we have not thought about that are quick, easy fixes that I think can be addressed by bringing all those students together,” she said.
The board plans to compile all recommendations into a list for legislators before the start of session in March.
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