San Francisco orders Apple, Google to remove nudify apps from app stores
This week, San Francisco’s attorney general, David Chiu, sent cease-and-desist letters, demanding that Apple and Google remove 13 so-called nudification apps from their app stores, Wired reported. Nudification apps can make it trivially easy to transform ordinary photos of real people into explicit images. The harmful AI tools allow bad actors to remove clothing, change a person’s features, place them in sexualized positions, and swap victims’ faces onto other people’s naked bodies. Chiu's lette
Get smart on it
San Francisco's attorney general has ordered Apple and Google to remove 13 nudification apps from their app stores. These apps use AI to transform ordinary photos into explicit images by removing clothing, altering features, or placing people in sexualized positions without consent, which violates California laws prohibiting deepfake pornography. The attorney general's office estimates that Apple and Google have made millions in fees from these apps while they primarily victimize women and children, causing documented harms including bullying, humiliation, mental health damage, and in some cases suicidal ideation. Google has suspended the five apps flagged to it, but Apple has remained silent on the issue, and the attorney general has warned that both companies face potential legal action if they do not remove these apps and strengthen their screening systems.
Related news
Monday.com is the latest tech company to blame AI for layoffs, here are 20 others
A running look — in reverse chronological order — at the bigger tech companies that have announced significant layoffs this year with AI as a stated factor.
Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech
At libraries around the country, "Avoiding AI" workshops have elicited unprecedented demand.
