This PBS NewsHour interview examines AI-powered nudification tools that can create non-consensual sexual images and videos, and the legal efforts to stop them. Guest Kalina Kotai argues the tools are widespread, cheap, and increasingly targeted by federal and state law, but the real solution is to make them harder to find, use, and profit from.
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The segment’s core argument is that AI nudification tools have made non-consensual intimate imagery easy to produce and distribute, and that regulators are now trying to catch up. Kalina Kotai explains that the category includes websites, phone apps, and face-swap systems that can remove clothing from a photo, generate a fully synthetic sexual image, or splice a person’s face onto explicit video. She emphasizes that the outputs can be convincing enough to function as abuse even when the underlying media are partly or wholly AI-generated. Kotai frames the spread as broad and deeply embedded. She says the technology is global, shows up in U.S. high schools, and is easy to access through common app stores, search engines, and even Grok on X. Her strongest quantitative-sounding claim is that, in her words, “with a $1 in 5 minutes” someone can create realistic non-consensual imagery. …
Near term, the setup is about enforcement and platform response: if takedowns, arrests, and app-store moderation tighten, access should get harder quickly. The main tactical risk is that cheap, searchable tools continue to outrun regulators.
Over the next several months, the most likely path is incremental restriction rather than a full shutdown of the market for these tools. The key confirmation is whether federal and state actions start squeezing distribution and payments faster than new operators can replace them.
Structurally, the interview points to a lasting AI-abuse regime where the focus shifts from content removal to constraining the tool layer and its economics. The long-run implication is that harmful generative AI products may increasingly be governed through access control, payment friction, and platform liability.
Nudification tools can generate realistic sexual images and videos of people without their knowledge or consent.
Opening premise of the segment and guest explanation.
The technology is global, widespread, and especially present in U.S. schools.
Kotai describes repeated cases and broad familiarity among students.
The Take It Down Act is a major federal shift because it criminalizes creation, compels takedowns, and covers threats to create images.
Kotai summarizes the new law's scope and impact.
Could you help us understand what these technologies are, what they do and how they do it?
Kalina explains there are a range of services from websites to phone apps that allow you to take a photo of someone's face and create a pornographic image or video. This ranges from 'nudification' — digitally removing clothing from a real photo with an AI-generated body — to full AI-generated images where you upload a face from social media, to face-swapping where a person's face is swapped onto an existing pornographic video.
How widespread are these technologies? Who's making them and who is using them?
Kalina says the technology is incredibly widespread and a global issue, plaguing US high schools with case after case of students using it. She notes surveys showing around 50% of students are familiar with the technology. These apps are available on Google and Apple Play Stores, and even mainstream platforms like Grok on X are being used to generate non-consensual intimate imagery. Websites are easily found through basic search terms and the services are cheap — for a dollar and five minutes you can create convincing imagery.
Can you talk about the efforts that have been made to try to curtail this — federal and state action, and how successful have those been?
Kalina discusses the Take It Down Act, under which three people have been charged and arrested. It's a major shift because it federalizes what was previously state-level legislation on revenge porn and synthetic imagery, criminalizing creation of the images, requiring platforms to take down images within 48 hours of notification, and penalizing threats to create such imagery. She also notes Minnesota passed a bill banning the nudification technology itself, closing a gap where the technology was not illegal even when creating the imagery was.
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