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 said in a news release last month announcing an investigation into whether Grok’s generation of the imagery broke any laws. The investigation is still underway, and Bonta is “committed to moving on this issue quickly,” his office said Wednesday.

Late last month, the Tech Transparency Project, dedicated to accountability at major tech firms, released a report saying it found 55 apps in the Google Play app store, and 47 in Apple’s app store, that could modify images of real women without their consent to make them completely or partially naked, or wearing bikinis and other skimpy clothing.

Companies highlighted by the Tech Transparency Project as purveyors of nudification apps are not nearly as widely known as Musk’s xAI, Google or Apple, and are based in locations from DreamFace in Redwood City to Bodiva in China. Bodiva offers a “Show Off Body” function that stripped women naked in photos, and also provides options to turn photos into pornographic videos, the Tech Transparency Project reported.

The controversy over the apps is just the latest to erupt since San Francisco’s OpenAI released its pioneering ChatGPT in late 2022, allowing users to generate words, sounds and images in response to prompts. AI-generated errors in legal filings, pervasive student AI use for homework and lawsuits alleging chatbots encouraged suicide have raised alarms.

A number of state and local laws apply to AI-generated images, including the federal Take It Down Act of 2025 — introduced by Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — which prohibits internet users from publishing non-consensual intimate images, including AI-made “deepfake” images of real people who have had clothing removed. A provision of the law also requires websites and apps to delete such imagery within 48 hours of a valid removal request.

California’s Assembly Bill 621, passed last year, bans non-consensual deepfake pornography. Its author, East Bay Democratic Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, told media outlets the law was drafted to prevent exactly what Grok was producing.

“These are tools that give people the ability to harm women,” Camerina Davidson, president of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women, said this week. “AI has reinvented misogyny.”

Tech companies, Davidson said, have given men “more powerful ways to harass women and try to assert power over women by using these AI-driven platforms that are so simple to get.”

Apple said its guidelines prohibit overtly sexual or pornographic content, and that it removed 28 of the apps the Tech Transparency Project identified. For the rest, Apple said it warned app developers of violations needing to be remedied in a timely fashion. Apple did not describe how promptly remedies must occur.

Google said it had suspended “most of the apps” pinpointed by the Tech Transparency Project, and that its investigation in the matter was continuing.

Despite taking action on those apps, Google and Apple continue to offer Grok in their app stores.

Grok, operated by Musk’s xAI, a Palo Alto artificial intelligence company that recently merged with Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, did not respond to questions.

The company in an early January post on X cited “lapses in safeguards” that it was “urgently fixing.” But despite that purported urgency, this month Reuters reported that between January 14 and 16 and January 27 and 28, a team of its reporters uploaded fully clothed photos of themselves to Grok and asked the chatbot to depict them in humiliating or sexually provocative poses.

“In the majority of cases, Grok returned sexualized images, even when told the subjects did not consent,” Reuters reported.

In January, Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, sued xAI in New York Supreme Court, alleging that Grok in response to users’ prompts, generated “countless sexually abusive, intimate, and degrading” images of her. “Among other things, X users dug up photos of St. Clair fully clothed at 14 years old and requested Grok undress her and put her in a bikini,” the lawsuit said. “Grok obliged.” The case was moved to federal court in New York, and lawyers for xAI are now battling to have it transferred to Texas federal court.

However, it’s not just women and girls undressed by the apps who are harmed, Davidson said.

“Seeing what is done to other women, it affects women emotionally and psychologically, and it makes women not want to call attention to themselves,” Davidson said. “Many women I know who are online, they don’t use their real name. They don’t want to be attacked.”

In allowing users to turn real women and girls into sex objects, the apps send the message to boys and men that girls and women exist to “serve the purposes of men,” said Ruth Darlene, executive director of Los Altos nonprofit WomenSV, which combats abuse of women and children.

“You get to do with them what you will.”

Use of Grok for sexualizing photos sparked a worldwide furor. Members of the British Parliament in mid-January issued a statement condemning “the use of Grok AI to generate and disseminate sexually explicit and non-consensual images of women and children on X, including digitally undressing and sexualising images of minors.” The European Commission and the UK’s privacy watchdog have both launched formal investigations into Grok over the issue.

On Feb. 3, prosecutors in France raided the offices of X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, in an investigation into what French authorities described as alleged possession and spreading of pornographic images of children, sexually explicit AI-generated “deepfake” imagery, and other material. Musk, who was summoned by French authorities, took to X to call the move “a political attack.“

Malaysia and Indonesia both blocked Grok over the image editing.

The eruption of outrage from California to Kuala Lumpur follows years of gender-related controversy in Silicon Valley’s tech industry. A 2012 gender-discrimination lawsuit by businesswoman Ellen Pao against Menlo Park venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins failed, but drew attention to the treatment of women in tech. In 2017, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was ousted amid a sexual harassment scandal, and the following year, the company agreed to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it discriminated against women and minorities.  Also in 2018, thousands of Google employees walked off the job over the company’s handling of workplace sexual harassment. Four years later, Google agreed to pay $118 million to up to 15,500 women to settle a years-long class-action lawsuit alleging it paid women less than men and promoted them more slowly and less frequently.

For companies like xAI, Google and Apple, the availability of undressing apps represents a leadership failure, said Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

“Reputational hits like the ones they’re taking now erode value in the company,” Skeet said. “They’re actually doing harm to the very entity that they’re responsible for leading.”

Almost symbolically, as it flows through Washington, D.C., the Potomac River carries on its journey to Chesapeake Bay more than 240 million gallons of suddenly spilled raw, untreated sewage. Poop. The smell is so pungent that residents say they can taste the filth just when talking on a street corner. Disease is a worry. Beyond the smell is the regrettable truth that a spring and summer of actually going out on the river is highly unlikely, if not foolishly risky.

The spill occurred on Jan. 19. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls it an ecological disaster of historic proportion. The University of Maryland calls it one of the largest sewage spills in the country.

To corroborate the symbolism, politicians not only have been slow to react, but they are quibbling with each other and repair work is not happening fast enough, on the grounds that no sewage pipe repair can happen fast enough. Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, says the repair is the federal government’s responsibility. President Donald Trump, possibly suffering a nasal blockage, did not comment on the disaster until Feb. 16, 28 days after the pipe ruptured. According to an NBC News story, the finger-pointing is complicated by the interwoven jurisdictions in the area, where two states, the District of Columbia, the federal government and D.C. Water work in coordination.

Trump posted that if local leaders wanted federal help, they should call him and politely ask for help, presumably calling him sir. Trump’s nose became unplugged when he realized the threat this summer to the nation’s 250th birthday celebration. Federal funds either now have been or soon will be released on a disaster declaration.

The feds apparently have to be on the hook. Many sources point out that the federal government has been maintaining the pipe for 100 years, which makes you wonder what the undersides of our once-great cities must look like. Do you think the new Marxist mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, cares about sewage pipes? No, he cares about free grocery stores. Or here, in Minneapolis, where we are entering year six just to establish a George Floyd memorial. God help anybody in this county if real work needs to be done. We have the workers, but their superiors fight all day about equity and inclusion proclamations, not infrastructure.

The broken pipe is within the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, which is property controlled by the federal government in Maryland. D.C. Water owns the Potomac Interceptor – which broke – and the EPA regulates and oversees it. Authorities claim that drinking water is not affected.

Locals are saying this: WHO CARES WHO FIXES IT? JUST FIX THE DAMN THING!

Because it is horrible and dangerous. The river is sluggish. The smell is unbearable. How many illnesses, how many businesses will suffer, how many fish and animals lost, as the burbling witch’s brew rolls, slowly, to the ocean?

Yes, I am supposed to understand that humans can destroy the Earth with their cars and lawnmowers and that true believers have a period in history they would wish to return to for more agreeable temperatures, which is an insane childish fantasy, but all you young scholars buying into this nonsense are in far more real danger from a ruptured sewer pipe than you will ever be by a gunned minivan on the way to a soccer practice. This is damage to the planet that you can see and touch and smell, not some computer model written by an academic who needs another hit of grant money.

If you really want to worry about something you can impact, start by finding people to run for office because they actually want to do something useful. We keep electing people who merely intend to be important. It’s not working out too well for us, either here or in the nation’s capital.

Every city in the country should right now be examining its water infrastructure to avoid a Potomac sewage catastrophe. But that isn’t sexy. The people we elect don’t even think that’s important.

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.

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Today is Saturday, Feb. 21, the 52nd day of 2026. There are 313 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 21, 1992, Kristi Yamaguchi of the United States won the gold medal in women’s figure skating at the Albertville Winter Olympics; Midori Ito of Japan won the silver, and American Nancy Kerrigan the bronze.

Also on this date:

In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published “The Communist Manifesto” in London.

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All truckers and bus drivers will be required to take commercial driver’s license tests in English

In 1885, President Chester Arthur dedicated the Washington Monument.

In 1911, composer Gustav Mahler, despite a fever, conducted the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in what turned out to be his final concert. (He died the following May.)

In 1916, the Battle of Verdun, the longest battle of World War I, began in northeastern France.

In 1965, civil rights activist Malcolm X, 39, was shot to death inside Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom in New York. Three men identified as members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of murder and imprisoned; all were eventually paroled. (The convictions of two of the men were dismissed in November 2021, when prosecutors said new evidence had undermined the case against them.)

In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon began a historic visit to China, where he met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

In 1973, Israeli fighter planes shot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 after it strayed into Israeli-controlled airspace over the Sinai Desert, killing all but five of the 113 people on board.

In 1975, former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, former White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, and former White House Domestic Affairs Adviser John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 2 1/2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up. (Each ended up serving less than two years.)

In 1995, American adventurer Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean by balloon, landing in Saskatchewan, Canada, after a 5,400-mile, four-day flight from South Korea.

Today’s birthdays:

Film and music executive David Geffen is 83.
Actor Tyne Daly is 80.
Actor Anthony Daniels is 80.
Actor William Petersen is 73.
Actor Kelsey Grammer is 71.
Country musician Mary Chapin Carpenter is 68.
Baseball Hall of Famer Alan Trammell is 68.
Actor William Baldwin is 63.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona is 62.
Actor Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is 57.
Musician Rhiannon Giddens is 49.
Actor Tituss Burgess is 47.
Actor Jennifer Love Hewitt is 47.
Filmmaker-comedian Jordan Peele is 47.
Singer Charlotte Church is 40.
Actor Joe Alwyn is 35.

The Timberwolves were in the midst of a collapse and heading toward a bad loss Friday at Target Center.

An 11-point lead over Dallas to open the final frame was slowly melting away when veteran guard Mike Conley leaned over to Anthony Edwards on the bench and suggested the 24-year-old superstar check himself back into the contest.

“I was like, ‘Nah, he’s going to put me in,’” Edwards said of Wolves coach Chris Finch.

The call to action came with seven minutes remaining after a Tyus Jones’ bucket tied the game at 103-103.

Edwards knew what he had to do. He had to be aggressive.

On his first possession back on the floor, he drilled a step-back triple, which set the table for a mini explosion down the stretch.

Edwards also drove to the hoop, pulled up for mid-range jumpers and buried shots along the baseline. His full arsenal was on display as he scored 14 points down the stretch on 6 for 8 shooting to lift Minnesota to a 122-111 home win over Dallas.

“Ant was awesome,” Finch said. “He finished the game like he can. I thought his shot selection was really good for the most part. He took the right shots. In clutch time, he got to his spots pretty simply.”

That’s long been Finch’s message to Edwards when it comes to end-of-game scoring: Don’t find dribble combinations to get to shots, find simple ways to get to spots. Once you establish your spots you will consistently cash jumpers from, you become infinitely harder for defenses to stop.

Edwards has had the top-of-the-arc triple since the start of last season. But he’s since added the elbow jumper as well as the mid-range, turnaround on the baseline as go-to shots he can generate against essentially any defensive scheme.

“I think Finchy is a big part of my success,” Edwards said. “He’s been preaching that to me for the last two years, so he’s a big part of that.”

It’s why Edwards is shooting 60% from the floor in clutch time this season — segments of the final five minutes of games when the margin is within five points. That’s the best mark in the NBA among the 65 players with north of 25 clutch-time field goal attempts.

Edwards said the development of his 3-point shot in recent years has opened up much on the offensive end.

“I think teams really don’t want me to shoot the step back going left, so they be pressed up,” he said. “They kind of let me go by them, honestly. It’s starting to feel like they just let me go to the rim. So just trying to pick my spots – when to shoot the three, when to get to the pull up, when to get to the rim, just reading the game.”

And choosing correctly more times than not.

“Year after year, I think his decision-making is the key,” Wolves center Rudy Gobert said. “For him to pick his spots and not settling every time and be able to attack and make the right play when they put two on him – find his teammates, trust his teammates. I think he’s been getting better and better, and this year is the best I’ve seen him. It’s huge. We need it. The ball is in his hands, so we need him to be able to make the best decision and to be the best offensive player in the world in those clutch minutes.”

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