AI-powered ‘undressing’ websites are getting sued

The San Francisco City Attorney’s bureau is suing 16 of the astir often visited AI-powered “undressing” websites, often utilized to make nude deepfakes of women and girls without their consent. The landmark lawsuit, announced astatine a property league by City Attorney David Chiu, says that the targeted websites were collectively visited implicit 200 cardinal times successful the archetypal six months of 2024 alone.

The offending websites let users to upload images of real, afloat clothed people, which are past digitally “undressed” with AI tools that simulate nudity. One of these websites, which wasn’t identified wrong the complaint, reportedly advertises: “Imagine wasting clip taking her retired connected dates, erstwhile you tin conscionable usage [the redacted website] to get her nudes.”

The website operators are accused of violating authorities and national laws banning revenge pornography, deepfake pornography, and kid pornography, alongside California’s unfair contention instrumentality due to the fact that “the harm they origin to consumers greatly outweighs immoderate benefits associated with those practices,” according to the ailment filing. The suit is seeking civilian penalties, successful summation to taking the websites offline and permanently preventing their purveyors from creating aboriginal deepfake pornography.

“This probe has taken america to the darkest corners of the internet, and I americium perfectly horrified for the women and girls who person had to endure this exploitation,” Chiu said connected X. “This is simply a big, multi-faceted occupation that we, arsenic a society, request to lick arsenic soon arsenic possible.”