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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, is suing the state of Minnesota over a law banning deepfake technology that can be used to generate artificial nude imagery.
The law, which was passed earlier this year and is scheduled to take effect Saturday, allows people portrayed in AI-generated nude content to file civil suits and seek damages from platforms used to create the images. The companies would also be subject to a $500,000 penalty.
Yet xAI’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, argues that the law is overly broad and that mechanisms already exist to police users caught generating nonconsensual nude imagery.
The complaint also claims that the law violates the First Amendment rights of the company’s users, many of whom use the chatbot Grok to generate images on Musk’s social media platform X.
“Although Minnesota likely has a compelling interest in preventing individuals from creating nudes of other people without consent and distributing that content, the statute punishes AI platforms for assisting in the creation of a substantial amount of protected speech in relation to that limited goal,” xAI said.
Lawyers for the company say that unless a judge blocks the law from going into effect on Saturday as intended, xAI will limit access to its services for users in Minnesota.
Backlash against xAI
State Rep. Jess Hanson, one of the law’s sponsors, pushed back on xAI’s lawsuit, arguing that there is “no constitutional protection” for providing the public with tools capable of generating non-consensual nude imagery.
“They’re kind of being like, ‘Well, it’s not our fault what people choose to do,’ but at the same time, you’re providing the tool, right?” she said.
Gov. Tim Walz, who supported the law, wrote a terser response on X.
“See you in court, creep,” Walz wrote, in an apparent reference to Musk.
The new law and xAI’s lawsuit follow months of backlash against xAI after it was discovered that Grok was used to produce not only non-consensual nude images of adult women but of children as well.
In a post to X in January, the chatbot even apologized for generating and sharing “an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt.”
“This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM,” the chatbot said, referring to child sexual abuse material. “It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.”
Musk weighed in at the time, saying that “anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”
While critics have called on xAI to limit Grok’s ability to create sexualized content, the company responded to the pushback this month by suing a South Carolina man who was arrested earlier this year for using the chatbot to create child sexual abuse material.
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