(LifeSiteNews) — On August 20, CBS posted one of the most dystopian headlines I’ve ever read: “AI ‘nudify’ apps that can digitally undress any photo pose back-to-school risk.”
“A sweet back-to-school photo can be more vulnerable to manipulation in the age of artificial intelligence, with bad actors getting their hands on AI-enabled apps that let them take an innocent photo and sexualize it — all that’s required is a photo of someone even fully clothed,” CBS reported.
“So-called ‘nudify apps’ use AI-generated software to turn photographs of people wearing clothing into naked or pornographic images with just a few swipes on a screen. Artificial intelligence has enabled the rapid rise of such tools, capable of digitally manipulating photos with little effort.”
This is not hyperbolic clickbait reporting. In 2023, I reported here that horrified American parents were discovering that their middle-school daughters were becoming the subject of AI-generated pornographic images. In 2024, we covered the trauma and suicides resulting from this new trend that is essentially sexting on steroids.
“Ten years ago, it was sexting and nudes causing havoc in classrooms,” Sally Weale wrote in a chilling 2025 report at the Guardian. “Today, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have made it child’s play to generate deepfake nude images or videos, featuring what appear to be your friends, your classmates, even your teachers. This may involve removing clothes, getting an image to move suggestively or pasting someone’s head on to a pornographic image.” These apps are very easy to use.
According to CBS, “roughly half of U.S. teens say they’ve seen AI-generated pornography, according to Common Sense Media, an advocacy group focused on kids’ online safety. Of those who have seen AI porn, one in four says it featured themselves or someone they know.” Additionally, one-in-five teenagers admitted to having made AI pornography, and another one in four either shared it with others or knows someone who has.
“Nudify” apps are easy to find, and CBS noted that many have no age restrictions. There are dozens available in both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. “CBS News fed AI-generated images of a fully clothed adult woman and an adult man into 70 different AI photo-editing apps,” they reported. “Nineteen of the apps altered the photos to create disturbing images and videos, which included nudity and explicit sexual content.”
“App stores do have a responsibility for the apps that they are making available to the public. So it’s absolutely critical that there are vetting procedures to know what exactly is being marketed and what that tool does in reality,” Michelle DeLaune, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told CBS News. DeLaune says the app stores should block them; the tech firms claim they are doing their best at vetting.
Parents must remain vigilant in the face of these new dangers. “The best advice is to talk to the kids in your life,” DeLaune said. “Ask them questions about how they’re using AI. How are their peers using AI? Do they know of a situation like this that has happened in their school or to one of their friends?”
Once again, however, children are being forced to live in a pornified world created by adults. Detective Javier Rodriguez of the Austin Independent School District Police Department told CBS that school resource officers need training. “Children face a lot of types of online sexual exploitation, whether it be online solicitation, child sexual abuse material or sextortion,” he said. “AI’s just made it that much easier to perpetrate those types of crimes against our kids.”
