Amherst Police investigating ‘misuse' of AI by high school student
AMHERST, N.Y. (WIVB) — Amherst Central High School administration sent a letter this week to parents after it learned that a student used artificial intelligence (AI) to create and share content that included the names of several students and faculty.
The letter by Amherst Central High School Principal Gregory Pigeon was sent out Wednesday to let parents know about a recent incident involving a high school student's misuse of an internet-based AI tool called Flow GPT.
That AI software was used by the student to create fictional chat bots that included the names of several students, parents and faculty, as well as some images taken from publicly available sources like social media, according to a new letter that was sent out Thursday by Amherst School District Superintendent Anthony Panella.
Amherst Police are now conducting a full investigation.
While we still don't know the specifics of what happened, what we do know is this type of thing is being seen all across the country, varying in its degree, where inappropriate photos of students are being used to create artificial images and videos — often times for nefarious purposes.
WIVB News 4 sat down with Barry Covert, a local criminal defense attorney, to find out what this could mean for the student responsible.
'Where you take a minor's head and use that face, or identifying information from them, and create deep-fake porn, and AI generated porn, that can be a federal offense,' Covert said. 'That can be under child exploitation, under child porn, possessing it would be a federal crime, distributing it even more serious, and producing it is very serious.'
While the courts may be different, if the culprit is a minor, Covert says the charges would likely still be the same.
'It looks very differently when a minor is charged in federal court,' Covert said. 'Then there's different rights that are guaranteed to them in the state court as well — you've got family court, you've got juvenile court, but yeah, plausibly, they could be charged.'
WIVB News 4 also sat down with a local psychiatrist, Dr. Wendy Weinstein, to find out how children who fall victim to this could be affected.
'Your social life can suffer tremendously, your self-esteem and identity can just be destroyed, you can become anxious, you can become depressed, you can self-isolate,' Dr. Weinstein said. 'You can even do things like, one of my colleagues was talking about, the possibility of self-harm … in the worst case scenario.'
Dr. Weinstein went on to discuss the importance of how parents react and the type of support they provide to their child if this happens to them.
'Listen to the child or adolescent with open ears,' Dr. Weinstein said. 'If we judge, the child or adolescent is going to pick up on this and it's going to make them feel worse, and it's going to create a downward drift.'
In the letter sent out to parents, Principal Pigeon wrote that they 'take online safety and student well-being very seriously. Please be assured that appropriate steps are being taken to address the situation and support those involved.'
Rob Petree is an anchor and reporter who joined the News 4 team in 2025. See more of his work by clicking here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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