xAI says the First Amendment protects the right to build ‘nudify’ tools

xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company now owned by SpaceX, filed a lawsuit in federal court against Minnesota’s attorney general to block HF 1606, the first US law that bans "nudify" tools that generate realistic nude images of real, identifiable people without consent. The law, set to take effect on Saturday, imposes civil penalties of up to $500,000 per violation, with proceeds funding services for sexual-assault victims. xAI argues the statute is an overbroad, content-based restriction on free speech that violates the First Amendment, warning that a service whose users created 100,000 banned images could face roughly $50 billion in fines and that the law would force it to strip back features of its Grok Imagine tool, chilling legal expression. While defending its right to offer such tools, xAI faces separate scrutiny: a proposed class action alleges its Grok model was used to create child sexual abuse material, prompting investigations by regulators in California, the UK, the EU and Ireland, and the company says it strictly prohibits nonconsensual sexual images and has sued users who evade its safeguards. The case unfolds amid a broader push by the Trump administration to replace state-level AI regulations with a single national framework, making Minnesota a test case for how far states can go in regulating AI.

(Source：TNW)