Elon Musk\u2019s company xAI has sued Minnesota over the state\u2019s first-in-the-nation law that bans \u201cnudification\u201d technology on websites and apps, potentially providing a test for how far states can go in constitutionally regulating the use of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s company sued Monday in federal court, days before the law is set to take effect<\/a> Saturday and make Minnesota the first state to try to outlaw the increasingly proliferating technology that lets people use AI to to create fake nude images of real people. The law was signed in May.<\/p>\n In the 38-page lawsuit, xAI \u2014 whose AI model chatbot and image generator Grok is available on the social media platform known as X, formerly Twitter, and elsewhere \u2014 said it does not contest the state\u2019s interest in banning the distribution of AI-generated nude images of real people without their consent. But it said Minnesota\u2019s law \u201cextends far beyond that goal,\u201d banning many constitutionally protected images and video and subjecting the company to a penalty of $500,000 per violation.<\/p>\n The lawsuit argues there is no \u201csafe harbor\u201d provision for companies that make good-faith efforts to prevent such images from being created by users, and that it covers images that were consented to by the depicted person, or even created by that person.<\/p>\n It also says the law\u2019s definition of \u201cintimate part\u201d is overly broad, covering body parts that are routinely displayed in public.<\/p>\n In a statement, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said his office had not been served with the lawsuit yet or seen it.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I know that using AI to generate nude images of people against their will is appalling. There are plenty of worthy debates to have about AI policy. This is not one of them. AI nudification robs the target of their dignity and can cause immense harm on an emotional, personal, and professional level,\u201d Ellison said.<\/p>\n State laws over election deepfakes have had mixed results in courts. California\u2019s law was blocked<\/a> over First Amendment speech protections. Minnesota\u2019s law has thus far survived a 2025 court challenge<\/a> by Musk\u2019s company.<\/p>\n The law is distinct from state and federal laws that outlaw deepfakes, AI-generated sexually explicit images of people without their consent. Those laws typically penalize the people who use the tools to make these images, not the makers of the tools themselves. The federal Take it Down Act, passed last year, also requires websites and apps to implement a process to remove those images.<\/p>\n Texas last year took on nudification in a slightly different way. It made a website or app owner liable to civil damages from a person depicted in a nudified image \u2014 and potentially criminal penalties \u2014 if the website or app owner knew the person hadn\u2019t given consent to its creation or fails to take it down promptly when told about it.<\/p>\n In the lawsuit, xAI said the terms of service for using Grok prohibit using it for \u201cany illegal, harmful, or abusive activities\u201d that violate someone\u2019s privacy, including altering their image to nudify them or depict them in a sexually explicit image. It said it enforces those rules against violators through account suspensions or terminations, and by reporting suspected child sexual abuse content.<\/p>\n XAI also said earlier this year that it has \u201czero tolerance for any forms of child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and unwanted sexual content.\u201d<\/p>\n After a global backlash over sexualized images of women and children, Grok said in January<\/a> it will geoblock content if it violates laws in a particular place, preventing people from editing photos of real people in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal. Grok\u2019s \u201cspicy mode\u201d had allowed users to create explicit content, leading to a backlash from governments worldwide.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis, underwear and other revealing attire,\u201d xAI said in a January statement.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Follow Marc Levy at http:\/\/twitter.com\/timelywriter<\/a>.<\/p>\n