HF 1606<\/a>, a first-in-the-nation law, was passed nearly unanimously in the spring legislative session. It received only one vote against it in either chamber.<\/p>\nRep. Jessica Hanson, DFL-Burnsville, was the House author of the bill. She responded to xAI\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely disgusting that Elon Musk and his xAI are fighting a law designed to protect children from sexual exploitation,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cNudification is simply an indefensible tool of AI. As the use of AI continues to grow, so does its potential harms, with nudification features being among the most urgent to address \u2013 and that\u2019s exactly why we banned them in Minnesota.\u201d<\/p>\n
xAI did not respond to a request for comment from The Center Square by publication.<\/p>\n
The law prohibits operators of websites, apps, software, and other services from allowing users to create realistic \u201cnudified\u201d images or videos of identifiable individuals or creating those images on users’ behalf.<\/p>\n
\u201cNudify\u201d means to digitally alter or generate an image or video to realistically depict a person as nude when they were not nude in the original image.<\/p>\n
\u201cNudification\u2019s victims are overwhelmingly children and women,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cChild sexual abuse material has surged by 26,000% due to this tool, with fake nude images devastating lives . . . This is what happens when corporations think they can do whatever they want to make a profit. They\u2019re enabling the sexual exploitation of children for their own greed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill also prohibits advertising or promoting such services. It also lays out penalties for breaking this law, which include:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Allowing affected individuals to sue for damages<\/p>\n
\u2022 Authorizing attorney general enforcement and civil penalties of up to $500,000 per violation<\/p>\n
The bill exempts services that require \u201cthe technical skill of a user\u201d to create the altered image or video.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit argued that the penalties were too steep and that the law improperly targets platforms rather than the individuals creating the images or videos, while also asserting that existing federal law already provides protections against such conduct.<\/p>\n
\u201cA business whose users created a hundred thousand images covered by HF 1606 (not at all unlikely for a publicly available program with millions of users generating billions of images) could owe an eye-popping $50 billion dollars,\u201d it said. \u201cIn 2026 alone, xAI has suspended over 50,000 accounts and made over 70,000 reports . . . which have resulted in (at least) 244 arrests.\u201d<\/p>\n
xAI is asking for the court to declare the law unconstitutional and prevent enforcement of its provisions. It is also seeking reimbursement from the state of Minnesota for all legal fees related to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cHF 1606 flouts these foundational First Amendment principles,\u201d the lawsuit said. \u201c It is content-based and vastly overinclusive: it bans protected non-sexual, consensual, and non-disseminated speech that has no connection to any legitimate interest in preventing distribution of nonconsensual nude images.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson pushed back on that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to hearing Elon Musk trying to explain to the public exactly the redeeming qualities he thinks nudification has and why it\u2019s important for him to undermine these critical protections,\u201d she said. \u201cIn court, Minnesota Attorney General Ellison is going to fight like hell to uphold this new law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elyse Apel, a graduate of Hillsdale College, is a reporter for The Center Square covering Minnesota and Michigan. Her work has appeared in a range of national outlets, including the Washington Examiner, The American Spectator, and The Daily Wire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square)\u00a0\u2013 Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is challenging a Minnesota law that restricts access to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[25,35349,5333,62750,2594,6964,62285,2899,9274],"class_list":["post-124770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-xai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-deepfake-pornography","tag-image","tag-jessica-hanson","tag-law","tag-lawsuit","tag-nudity","tag-xai","tag-xai-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}