Teens are using AI to create fake nudes of their classmates — as a new form of bullying
Teens are using artificial intelligence to whip up disturbingly realistic nude images of their classmates — and then share them like digital wildfire, sending shockwaves through schools and leaving experts fearing the worst.
The AI-powered tools, often dubbed 'nudify' apps, are as sinister as they sound. With just a headshot — often lifted from a yearbook photo or social media profile — these apps can fabricate explicit deepfake images that appear scarily real.
And yes, it's already happening in schools.
3 AI 'nudify' apps are fueling a disturbing trend among teens: generating fake nude images of classmates and spreading them with devastating consequences.
Getty Images
These hyper-realistic images — forged with AI tools — are turning bullying into a high-tech nightmare.
'We're at a place now where you can be doing nothing and stories and pictures about you are posted online,' Don Austin, superintendent of the Palo Alto Unified School District, told Fox News Digital.
'They're fabricated. They're completely made up through AI and it can have your voice or face. That's a whole other world.'
This is a full-blown digital crisis. Last summer, the San Francisco City Attorney's office sued 16 so-called 'nudify' websites for allegedly violating laws around child exploitation and nonconsensual images.
Those sites alone racked up more than 200 million visits in the first half of 2023.
3 This trend is a full-blown digital crisis.
Getty Images
But catching the tech companies behind these tools? That's like playing a game of Whac-A-Mole.
Most have skated past current state laws, though some — like Minnesota — are trying to pass legislation to hold them accountable for the havoc they're wreaking.
Still, the tech moves faster than the law — and kids are getting caught in the crossfire.
3 AI apps are making bullying disturbingly easy — no skills needed, just a face and a few taps to create shockingly real fake nudes.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
Josh Ochs, founder of SmartSocial — an organization that trains families on online safety — told Fox News Digital that AI-generated nudes are causing 'extreme harm' to teens across the country.
'Kids these days will upload maybe a headshot of another kid at school and the app will recreate the body of the person as though they're nude,' Ochs revealed to the outlet.
'This causes extreme harm to that kid that might be in the photo, and especially their friends as well and a whole family,' he noted.
He said parents need to stop tiptoeing around their children's digital lives — and start laying down some boundaries.
'Before you give your kids a phone or social media, it's time to have that discussion early and often. Hey, this is a loaner for you, and I can take it back at any time because you could really hurt our family,' Ochs said.
In February, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to criminalize publishing — or even threatening to publish — nonconsensual AI deepfake porn.
It now awaits further action.
Austin said the only way to get ahead of the curve is to keep talking — with parents, teachers, students, and anyone else who will listen.
'This isn't going away,' he warned. 'It's evolving — and fast.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
WIRED
2 hours ago
- WIRED
Is Particle Analysis the New Key to Great Coffee? We Tried It Out
The performance of coffee grinders used to be a mystery, unless you knew someone at a lab. We used a new tool to analyze our top coffee grinder picks, and maybe make better coffee. Courtesy of DiFluid; Getty Images All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Learn more. I don't mean to be dramatic when I say coffee grinders are both the biggest mystery in coffee, and also coffee's biggest hive of technological invention. If you find yourself in the online rabbit holes of the coffee world these days, you'll almost certainly encounter a bean geek eager to tell you a secret. The secret is that your coffee grinder is more important to how your coffee tastes than your drip brewer, and also more important than your espresso maker. This idea makes some sense. Just like temperature and time and pressure, the size of your coffee grounds will determine how fast your brewer can extract flavor—and maybe even which flavors get pulled out. Uneven coffee grinds, with lots of ultrafine particles or giant boulders, will cause uneven extraction. This in turn will result in bitter or muddy coffee, or a failed shot of espresso. Photograph: Matthew Korfhage But until pretty recently, grinder tech had been ignored by all but the nerdly few, says Jordan Michelman, cofounder of coffee website Sprudge, which for 15 years has been the coffee industry's home page. (Michelman is also a contributor to WIRED.) 'It's really just in the last decade that a lot more attention has been paid to grinder minutiae, grinder results, grinder tech,' Michelman said, noting it's now become a frenzy. 'There's been quite a lot more advancement, technological innovation, new tools, and new stuff in the world of grinding than there has been in espresso [machines]." Now, it's rare to find anyone who cares about coffee using a cheap, old-fashioned blade grinder—basically a blender for coffee—which roughly chops coffee beans with spinning steel. The new wisdom is that only burr grinders will do. Conical burrs are like a many-angled drill bit, crushing and funneling and finally cutting each bean. Flat burrs, meanwhile, are like spinning wheels of death that rotate against each other at a set separation. But even if you buy the expensive grinder, it's hard to know how well a coffee grinder is actually working, or even the basic rules behind what types of grinders create what flavors. Do conical burrs make coffee taste more like chocolate? Does a flat burr love fruit? Maybe. Technical-minded coffee influencers like Lance Hedrick have been pretty open about throwing up their hands when it comes to the actual science of it all. The science, quite frankly, isn't in. Grinders are lore . They're a shared culture of subjectivity. When I test grinders, much of the hard work is often done simply by taste test, comparing flavors yielded by different grinders with the same beans. I've used magnifying lenses to look at the evenness of grinds, scratched my head over static and clumping, and spent untold hours comparing notes with other coffee obsessives online. But up to now, about the best objective home tool for assessing grind precision was to pour coffee grounds through a set of sieves, and see how much coffee you still had left. Not a Leibovitz-caliber portrait, but it's something. The Age of Home Coffee Grinder Analysis Has Arrived Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Imagine my excitement, then, to finally have a piece of equipment that could potentially depict how well a coffee grinder works in granular detail. Specifically, I've got a DiFluid Omni ($900), a new device that promises something heretofore unknown: the chance for home coffee geeks to graph out the particle size distribution of a batch of coffee. (It also has a colorimeter, to assess the lightness or darkness of a roast.) Until recently, you'd have to shell out thousands of dollars to conduct particle size analysis on a batch of coffee—or maybe know somebody in Germany who runs a university lab. The Omni comes in at about a quarter of the price of the next closest device I've found. Still a lot, but it's an amount of money that many people actually possess. And the Omni promises to graph particle size with more reliability than previous attempts at home analyzers. And so for kinda the first time, it's possible for someone at home to assess how good a grinder is. Even a few years back, says Michelman, having tech like this at home would have seemed 'unthinkable.' Now that it's thinkable, we figured we'd put our favorite coffee grinders to the test—the grinders that the WIRED Reviews team has been recommending based on long experience. The coffee grinders we've been not just recommending but also sometimes arguing vociferously about behind the scenes. Some questions now have answers. So who would prevail? The Fellow Opus or the equally priced Baratza Encore ESP? Are higher-end burr grinders demonstrably better than budget grinders? And does the Omni actually work as advertised? The results are a little complicated. But I've learned more about my favorite coffee grinders this month than in the entire past year. For each grinder, among seven I tested during this first round of particle analysis, I kept it simple. I used the same coffee beans, from the same batch: A Stumptown Single Origin Colombia whose flavor I know well, with its roast date printed on the bag. I tested a medium grind for drip or pour-over coffee. And I tested nearly the finest grind each grinder was capable of, which usually was an espresso grind. (Just in case the actual finest grind was an outlier, I moved up a notch or a few notches coarser, for each grinder.) I then ran at least five tests for each grind size, for each grinder, to get a cumulative particle distribution. To collate and visualize this data, I relied on an app that's still in beta testing as of August 2025: DiFluid's CoffeeOS app. Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Each test involved using a wee sampling of coffee grounds, totaling one-64th of a teaspoon or less. To run the test, I spread the grounds across the white circular base of the Omni. This could be done using Omni's brush, or the device's vibration function. Both methods were recommended by DiFluid, but I found that vibration worked better for fine grinds, while coarse grinds were better off being dispersed by the brush. Then I placed the Omni's top onto the base: The top of the device has a camera whose lens faces the circular base with the coffee grounds on it. The camera captures the size of each ground, assuming the grounds are dispersed appropriately. The results weren't always perfect: It's hard to stop coffee from clumping. But they were illuminating. DiFluid's app is still in beta, so I'll wait to publish full results of particle size analysis—and in the meantime keep collecting more data. But I will offer a number of early impressions. Fellow Opus vs Baratza Encore ESP: Which Is Better? Spoiler: An app can't tell you what grinder is best. But it does help tell you which one's more precise, and it gives you insight into how each grinder develops flavor at different grind settings. And among all of the electric coffee grinders I tested, the Baratza Encore ESP proved itself to have the most precise results at very fine grinds. Courtesy of Matthew Korfhage On fine grinds, about 30 percent of the ESP's coffee grounds huddled in peak range—the most concentrated result of any electric grinder I tested. At a medium grind level, the ESP wasn't quite as tightly grouped—and there was a fair amount of coffee fines. In my experience with the ESP, these contributed more to full body than bitterness. Meanwhile the Fellow Ode Gen 2, a flat burr grinder we've long held as our favorite for drip coffee, produced a textbook-looking normal distribution at medium grinds—a mix of precision and nuance—but a flat distribution at finer grinds. Courtesy of Matthew Korfhage The biggest surprise was the Technivorm Moccamaster KM5, a flat burr grinder I hadn't tested till this past month. The Moccamaster showed quite precise results across the board—rivaling the Encore ESP at fine grinds and the Ode Gen 2 at grinding for drip. Moccamaster is a much-trusted coffee brewer brand, of course, known for its analog precision. But it's not known for grinders, and without this particle analysis I might not have clocked how well it did. Courtesy of Matthew Korfhage In fact, multiple results were surprising. The conventional wisdom is that flat burr grinders are precise, and conical burr grinders are more likely to show a balanced blend of grind sizes—and therefore bring out sweetness, depth, and chocolate. But raw data from particle analysis showed mixed results even for the same grinder, depending on the coarseness or fineness of the grind setting. And so the same grinder might evince austerity at one grind level, and sweetness at another. At coarser grinds, the Kingrinder K6 hand grinder behaves much like the Ode, with a nearly textbook bell-curve distribution surrounding a central peak—as if plucked from questionable studies about human ability. Courtesy of Matthew Korfhage Photograph: Matthew Korfhage $129 $99 (23% off) Amazon But when I dialed the K6 tighter to espresso-fine grinds, the K6's curve compressed to what looked like a slender butte: Grind sizes stayed fairly even, across a tightly compressed range. This would indicate precise and aromatic pour-over, but chocolatey espresso—maybe the best of both worlds. These results were backed up by my own taste test. But Imprecision and Variability Reign And yet, precision is relative. A surprise from this testing was the extreme variability of coffee grounds within each sample, among all grinders tested. Coffee grounds aren't one size or another: Rather, they live on a continuum. The sweet spot for brewing coffee in any given style is a window of just a few hundred microns—and yet, the standard deviation for the grinders I tested was rarely less than two hundred microns. Coffee grinders invariably spit out a range of both large and small particles. A range of coffee particle sizes isn't bad, necessarily: This can lead to balance, depth, and complicated toffee or chocolate notes. Tight particle distributions will more likely express more specific aromatics, like bright cherry or funky plum. The one universal is that you don't want too many extra tiny particles (which can lead to bitterness), or extra large boulders (which lead to muddled, muddy flavor). I had trouble getting useful results from the Omni at first. The device doesn't always differentiate between coffee grounds when they're too close together, and its base has a quite small surface area, which makes for a small sample size. Combined with the broad variability among samples, it's tough to draw helpful conclusions from any individual test—enough so that I initially thought the DiFluid Omni was a bust. Photograph: Matthew Korfhage I sent worried emails to DiFluid's customer support to this effect, and was told at first to try using smaller scoops of coffee to avoid clumping. I tried spritzing coffee beans with a tiny bit of water before grinding, to avoid static electricity. I also shook and stirred the grounds before sampling, to declump further—and tried out multiple distribution methods to spread the coffee grounds optimally across the Omni's base. But in the end, the problem wasn't clumping: It was sample size. To mitigate this, you'll need Omni's CoffeeOS app, which is still in beta but accessible through Discord. Pair your phone to the device, and the app can collate results from multiple tests to build a more robust distribution curve. By the time you conduct five or more tests pulled from the same batch of coffee grounds, patterns begin to emerge. If DiFluid Omni is still a bit fussy to get results from, it offers the best snapshot I've seen of how—and how well—an individual coffee grinder operates. Presumably, DiFluid will keep improving on its software and firmware. Meanwhile, competitors may also enter the market at an accessible price point. This'll all be good. Already, I have a brand new way to understand why my coffee tastes the way it does. Michelman, the cofounder of Sprudge, says tools like this weren't conceivable for home coffee drinkers even a couple years ago. 'These are tools that were once only the sort of thing you could imagine having access to in, like, a successful coffee bar with dough to spare,' he said. Particle size analysis was available only to 'a fraction of a fraction' of people in the coffee industry. On the one hand, a home particle size analyzer for your coffee grounds is so deep down the nerdhole it's hard to even find the exit. On the other, it's a future that would have once felt unimaginable.
Associated Press
7 hours ago
- Associated Press
AcquiSell Revolutionizes Exits for Business Owners
New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - August 13, 2025) - Business owners looking to sell are finding a powerful new ally in AcquiSell, the AI-powered M&A marketplace that's redefining how companies are bought and sold. Unlike traditional business brokerages or public listing sites, AcquiSell connects sellers directly with a large and growing network of institutional buyers, enabling owners to receive higher quality offers, faster and with zero upfront costs. For years, the M&A space has relied on outdated systems, fragmented broker networks, and public listing sites that attract unqualified buyers, wasting time and diminishing deal value. AcquiSell is changing the game by offering sellers private, AI-matched exposure to vetted buyers, including private equity firms, family offices, and strategic acquirers actively seeking acquisition targets. 'Our platform flips the traditional model,' said Vlad Rascanu, CEO of AcquiSell. 'Instead of putting a business on a public marketplace and hoping the right buyer finds it, we proactively connect sellers with qualified institutional buyers who are ready and capable of making competitive offers.' Key Benefits for Sellers Using AcquiSell When business owners are ready to explore a sale, AcquiSell offers a smarter, more efficient path forward. The platform connects sellers directly with institutional buyers-buyers who typically pay higher multiples-without charging any fees to the seller. Unlike public marketplaces, AcquiSell keeps listings completely private, ensuring confidentiality throughout the process. Its AI-powered technology matches each business with the most relevant and qualified buyers based on financials, industry, location, and other key criteria. And while the platform is tech-enabled, sellers are never alone-AcquiSell's experienced M&A team provides hands-on support to help prepare for the sale, navigate negotiations, and maximize the exit, all without the inflated commissions traditional brokers charge. AcquiSell is designed for businesses with $500K to $10M+ in annual profit, across all industries, from trade services and healthcare to manufacturing and technology. With traditional brokers charging high commissions and relying on limited buyer networks, and public sites flooded with unqualified inquiries, AcquiSell offers a modern, seller-first alternative that's already transforming the M&A landscape. About AcquiSell AcquiSell is a modern M&A marketplace purpose-built for profitable businesses earning $500K to $10M+ in annual profit. The platform connects sellers with a curated network of institutional buyers and provides a fully private, tech-enabled, and cost-free way for business owners to exit on their own terms. To learn more or list your business confidentially, visit Press Contact Vlad Rascanu Founder & CEO, AcquiSell [email protected] To view the source version of this press release, please visit
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
Could Apple Be Gearing Up for a Big Acquisition?
Key Points Apple's stock is struggling this year as investors grow concerned with its artificial intelligence strategy. The company delayed some key features of its iPhones until next year. CEO Tim Cook recently suggested that the company would consider making a big acquisition to accelerate its growth. 10 stocks we like better than Apple › Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been a tremendous stock to own for decades. But lately, it's been falling behind its competitors. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a hot theme for tech in recent years, and Apple has been taking a slow and perhaps overly conservative approach to deploying next-gen technologies for its iPhones. Investors haven't been pleased with the strategy, and the stock has been doing poorly in what's otherwise been a strong year for the markets. As of the end of Aug. 7, the stock was down more than 12% from the start of the year, while the S&P 500 has risen by nearly 8%. But there have been whispers and signs that the company may be looking to appease investors and make a big move, one that could help it catch up to its rivals in AI. Could a big acquisition be on the horizon for Apple? Tim Cook hints at M&A to speed up its AI strategy There are so many chatbots and AI-powered products and services in the market these days that it can be difficult to keep up. Apple has been playing catch-up, and while it has been introducing AI features for its iPhones, it delayed some until next year, particularly for its Siri assistant. The problem is that by then, it risks falling even further behind its rivals. But the company does have substantial resources it can put toward a big acquisition to bolster its strategy. As of June 28, the company's cash and marketable securities totaled more than $55 billion. And over the past nine months, it has generated nearly $82 billion in cash from its day-to-day operating activities. CEO Tim Cook recently said that the company may be willing to put that money to work and that he's open to mergers & acquisitions (M&A). "We're very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap," he said. And what was particularly noteworthy was that he may have hinted that even a large deal may be a possibility, stating that "we are not stuck on a certain size company." Earlier this year, there were rumors that the company was looking into acquiring Perplexity, which has a popular chatbot and would equip Apple with a load of AI talent. While nothing has materialized and nothing may come of it, a move like that could certainly help Apple win over AI investors. Investors shouldn't be worried about Apple in the long run Apple has a robust business, a vast ecosystem of products and services, and more than 1.5 billion active iPhone users around the globe. And don't forget its massive cash flow. The company is by no means in imminent danger. The company has been taking it easy in recent years and has typically been cautious in its growth, opting to make small, incremental changes to its iPhones rather than big, revolutionary ones. But I think that's because it hasn't had to do that or worry about that. Its users are entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, where it isn't easy to just switch to another provider, as doing so would be a significant undertaking. With AI, however, management may finally be pushed to be a bit more aggressive. And even if it's behind the competition right now, all it takes is one big move or acquisition to change that. I wouldn't worry about Apple in the long run, as the business still looks phenomenal, and with deep pockets, it has plenty of options it can consider. Should you buy Apple stock right now? A big acquisition for Apple may or may not happen, and it's risky to invest based on rumors. But as one of the world's largest and most iconic tech companies, this still looks like a good stock to invest in for the long haul. At more than 30 times its trailing earnings, it isn't all that cheap. And it may be a volatile road ahead for the company, as it has to worry about tariffs. A slowdown in the economy could impact demand for its products as well. But if you're looking for a stock to invest in for the long term (e.g., 10-plus years), Apple can be a great option to consider. Should you invest $1,000 in Apple right now? Before you buy stock in Apple, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Apple wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $653,427!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,119,863!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 182% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 4, 2025 David Jagielski has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Could Apple Be Gearing Up for a Big Acquisition? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
