PENSACOLA, Fla. — A 17-year-old girl is facing a felony charge after Pensacola police say she distributed AI generated nude photos — or “deep fakes” — for high school students.

“Investigators discovered that (she) obtained a male acquaintance’s cell phone, which contained AI, generated nude photos of 14 women,” Pensacola police said in a statement Thursday. “(She) made a copy of the photos with her phone and kept the photos for a month. (She) then broadcast the photos to 17 high school students, some of whom were not represented in the AI-generated photos.”

The person who created the images cannot be charged with anything in the state of Florida — as is the case in this incident.

“There’s obviously a loophole in the law,” said Pensacola Police Officer Mike Wood. “If you can create it, that’s a problem. With AI, if you can create nude images of someone without their permission, that’s a problem. If you can possess those images without his permission, that’s a problem. these are legal.”

“Laws usually lag behind new technology,” added Officer Wood. “That’s what happened in this case.”

Officer Wood says this is the second or third case of its kind in Florida.

Other states’ laws cover the creation and ownership of AI images.

In Wisconsin, state law has more teeth. A man faces up to 175 years in prison for possessing AI-generated child pornography.

“In this case, I wouldn’t consider them casualty-free,” said Lt. Alex Volm of the Wisconsin Sheriff’s Department. “They weren’t just watching virtual child pornography in a bubble, so to speak. Let’s put it this way. There is a tendency that they could have led to a hands-on crime.”

Although the images in the Pensacola case were not considered child pornography under current Florida law, it is still not illegal for someone to possess AI child pornography.