FICS Research team wins NYU Social Impact Award
FICS researchers Daniel (Ozzy) Olszewski and Cassidy Gibson, Ph.D., recently won the Social Impact Award at NYU Center for Cybersecurity’s Awareness Week. Their paper, “Analyzing the AI Nudification Application Ecosystem,” was selected as one of just 11 projects out of 189 submissions to the Applied Research Competition.
Their research examines 20 popular websites that use AI to generate nude or sexualized images from a single photo in under 30 seconds. These AI-based nudification applications can create explicit images of clothed individuals without their consent, raising serious privacy, ethical, and societal concerns.
“This research is impactful because AI has become an everyday tool,” explained Olszewski. “Few people stop to ask what harm these technologies can cause. Our research resonates with people because it demonstrates how personal and widespread the risks can be.”
Olszewski also credited his advisors and mentors — Interim CISE Chair Patrick Traynor, Ph.D., and FICS Director Kevin Butler, Ph.D. at the University of Florida, and Tadayoshi Kohno, Ph.D. and Elissa Redmiles, Ph.D. from Georgetown University — for shaping his approach to research with real-world impact. The applied research competition at NYU’s Center for Cybersecurity Awareness Week is a premier contest for security research. The award highlights FICS’s leadership in cybersecurity and the institute’s commitment to addressing societal challenges of emerging technologies.