A team of researchers, including Kevin Butler, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida, is sounding the alarm on a disturbing trend in artificial intelligence: the rapid rise of AI-generated sexually explicit images created without the subject’s consent.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Butler and colleagues from UF, Georgetown University and the University of Washington investigated a growing class of tools that allow users to generate realistic nude images from uploaded photos — tools that require little skill, cost virtually nothing and are largely unregulated.

“Anybody can do this,” said Butler, director of the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research. “It’s done on the web, often anonymously, and there’s no meaningful enforcement of age or consent.”