Grok and other ‘nudification’ apps offered by Google and Apple put Silicon Valley at center of global outrage

Cutting-edge AI technology allowing boys and men to digitally undress girls and women without consent has put male-dominated Silicon Valley, long criticized as inhospitable to women, in a harsh new spotlight, after xAI’s Grok chatbot sparked worldwide outrage, and Google and Apple allowed dozens of “nudification” apps in their app stores.

Grok, a standalone app as well as a feature on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, generated 3 million sexualized images in the 11 days after its image-editing feature was released in December, the UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate reported. Users digitally stripped real women in images — and more than 20,000 apparent children — manipulating many into sexual poses. Musk responded dismissively, reposting an AI-generated image of a toaster in a bikini, saying he “couldn’t stop laughing” about it.

California authorities weren’t laughing.

“This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet,” Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office