The dignity of victims cannot wait for technology to be understood
En un momento en que la tecnología ha superado la capacidad del derecho para nombrar sus daños, el Congreso de Jalisco aprobó una ley que convierte en delito la creación y distribución de imágenes sexuales generadas por inteligencia artificial sin el consentimiento de la persona representada. La reforma, que contempla penas de uno a ocho años de prisión, responde a un vacío legal que en otros lugares ha obligado a los fiscales a recurrir a figuras jurídicas inadecuadas para perseguir un crimen que la ley aún no sabía nombrar. Jalisco ha decidido que la dignidad de las víctimas potenciales no puede esperar a que el código penal comprenda la tecnología.
- Las herramientas de generación de imágenes por IA se han vuelto tan accesibles y convincentes que el daño ya no requiere una fotografía real: basta con un nombre y un algoritmo para destruir una reputación.
- En Argentina y Santa Fe, fiscales y jueces se vieron obligados a usar cargos de lesiones agravadas o difamación porque ninguna ley nombraba específicamente el delito, dejando a las víctimas sin el reconocimiento jurídico que merecían.
- Las mujeres cargan de manera desproporcionada con este tipo de violencia digital, que no solo expone sino que también extorsiona: la imagen fabricada se convierte en amenaza y en arma.
- La reforma amplía la Ley Olimpia para cubrir contenido completamente sintético, reconociendo que el daño psicológico —vergüenza, ansiedad, depresión— es idéntico independientemente de si la imagen fue robada o generada desde cero.
- Jalisco no esperó a la ley federal ni al consenso nacional: legisló primero, estableciendo un precedente que otros estados y países de la región podrían seguir o ignorar.
El Congreso de Jalisco aprobó una reforma penal que convierte en delito explícito la creación y distribución de pornografía deepfake generada por inteligencia artificial sin el consentimiento de la persona representada. La pena oscila entre uno y ocho años de prisión, más multas. La iniciativa fue impulsada por la bancada Hagamos y modifica el Artículo 176 Bis 3 del código penal estatal.
El vacío que esta ley viene a llenar no era teórico. En Córdoba, Argentina, un joven de 19 años publicó imágenes pornográficas falsas de sus compañeras de escuela en 2024 y el fiscal tuvo que acusarlo de lesiones agravadas por violencia de género, porque no existía ningún delito específico para lo que había hecho. En Santa Fe, un hombre que fabricó y distribuyó imágenes sexuales falsas de alrededor de ochenta mujeres fue procesado por difamación, otra figura que nombraba mal el crimen real.
El diputado Tonatiuh Bravo argumentó que Jalisco no podía seguir siendo testigo de cómo la inteligencia artificial era usada para atacar a mujeres mientras la ley permanecía impotente. Los daños documentados en las víctimas son concretos: vergüenza, ansiedad, depresión y la exposición pública de imágenes que nunca existieron en la realidad física. El daño se agrava cuando el contenido fabricado se convierte en herramienta de extorsión.
La reforma extiende la Ley Olimpia —que ya protegía contra la distribución no consensual de imágenes manipuladas— al contenido completamente sintético, reconociendo que la ausencia de una fotografía real no disminuye el daño. Lo que reste por ver es si los fiscales aplicarán la ley y si las víctimas sabrán que existe.
Jalisco's legislature has drawn a legal line where technology had outpaced the law. On a single vote, the state congress approved a criminal statute that explicitly names as a felony the creation and distribution of sexually explicit images generated entirely by artificial intelligence—deepfakes, in the language of the internet—without the consent of the person depicted. The penalty is severe: one to eight years in prison, plus fines.
The reform modifies Article 176 Bis 3 of the state penal code and was championed by the Hagamos legislative caucus. It addresses a gap that has become urgent as AI image-generation tools have become cheaper, faster, and more convincing. Before this law, prosecutors in other jurisdictions faced a problem: the crime didn't have a name. When a 19-year-old in Córdoba, Argentina created and posted fake pornographic images of his schoolmates in 2024, the prosecutor had no statute for deepfake pornography. He charged the young man with aggravated assault qualified by gender violence instead—a legal contortion that fit poorly and left the specific harm unnamed. In Santa Fe, when a man created and distributed false sexual images of roughly eighty women, a judge resorted to charging him with defamation, again because the law had no category for what he had actually done.
Jalisco's legislators decided not to wait for that moment. The Hagamos caucus argued that the reform serves a dual purpose: it protects the dignity, privacy, and intimate life of anyone who might become a victim of this form of digital assault, and it recognizes that women bear the disproportionate burden of this particular violence. The documented consequences for victims are not abstract. They include shame, anxiety, depression, and the trauma of public exposure. The harm deepens when the technology becomes a tool of extortion—when a victim receives the fabricated content on their phone accompanied by a demand: distribute this widely or face the consequences.
Tonatiuh Bravo, a Hagamos deputy, framed the initiative as a matter of urgency. "Jalisco could not continue watching artificial intelligence be used to attack women while the law stood helpless," he said. "We proposed this reform because the dignity of victims cannot wait for technology to be understood by the penal code."
The new law expands the reach of what is already known as the Olimpia Law, which previously addressed the non-consensual distribution of manipulated or altered sexual images and videos. This reform extends that protection to content that is entirely synthetic—images that depict a real person but were never photographed, never existed in physical reality. It is a recognition that the harm is the same whether the image was stolen from a private moment or conjured from pixels and algorithms.
The statute carries weight because it names the crime specifically and assigns it a serious penalty. It also sends a message: Jalisco is not waiting for federal law, not waiting for other states to move first, not waiting for the technology to become even more ubiquitous. The legislators have decided that the dignity of potential victims is not a question that can be deferred. What happens next will depend on enforcement, on whether prosecutors use the statute, and on whether victims know it exists.
Citações Notáveis
Jalisco could not continue watching artificial intelligence be used to attack women while the law stood helpless. We proposed this reform because the dignity of victims cannot wait for technology to be understood by the penal code.— Tonatiuh Bravo, Hagamos deputy
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Jalisco need a specific law for this? Couldn't prosecutors already charge people with harassment or defamation?
They could, but it was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. In Argentina and Santa Fe, judges had to use charges like aggravated assault or defamation because there was no statute that actually named what the crime was. The law was silent on deepfakes entirely.
So the problem wasn't that the behavior was legal—it was that the law didn't have the right words for it.
Exactly. And that matters because it leaves victims without recognition, prosecutors without clarity, and judges without a framework. The new law says: this specific thing—creating and distributing AI-generated sexual images without consent—is a crime, and here is the punishment.
The law mentions that women are disproportionately targeted. Why is that?
Because sexual violence, in all its forms, has always targeted women more than men. AI just gave it a new tool. The technology is cheap, it's fast, and it requires no cooperation from the person depicted. A woman's face can be placed into explicit content in minutes.
And the extortion angle—that seems particularly cruel.
It is. You receive an image of yourself doing something you never did, accompanied by a threat: pay me or I send this to your family, your employer, everyone you know. The victim faces a choice between silence and exposure, between shame and the risk of losing their livelihood.
Does the law actually stop this from happening, or does it just punish it after the fact?
It punishes it after the fact. But the existence of the law—the clarity, the serious penalty—may deter some people. It also sends a message to victims that they are not alone, that the law recognizes what happened to them as a crime.