Science & Tech
xAI challenges Minnesota nudify law
Will the state’s new AI speech limits survive a First Amendment fight?
Will the state’s new AI speech limits survive a First Amendment fight?
sits at the center of a wider clash over how far states can go in policing AI-generated sexual imagery without suppressing legitimate speech. Backed by a bipartisan response to real-world , the law threatens heavy penalties for companies that let users create , while xAI argues that broad liability would sweep in protected expression and punish AI tools even when they include safeguards.
Minnesota’s is scheduled to take effect on , unless blocked by the court. State reporting said officials intend to enforce the statute against websites and apps that let users create , while the legal fight over the law’s scope continues.
In its complaint, xAI argued that Minnesota’s law is an overbroad, on and . The company said the statute lacks adequate and could ban lawful uses of image-editing and generative tools.
xAI filed suit in federal court in Minnesota against , seeking to block the new law before it took effect. The company said the statute would burden its AI tools and expose it to massive liability for users’ conduct.
Before suing, xAI said ’s terms already prohibit real people and that the company has acted against users who evade . That claim became central to xAI’s argument that Minnesota was sweeping up legitimate AI products along with abusive ones.
Minnesota lawmakers moved after reports of a Minnesota man using social media photos to create sexualized images and videos of dozens of women without consent. That abuse helped define nudification tools as a concrete harm and drove the bipartisan push for a tool-level ban.
The statute exposed violators to civil penalties of up to $500,000 for each unlawful use, and allowed victims to sue directly. Coverage of the law said the attorney general could also pursue companies tied to repeated violations.
Gov. Tim Walz signed HF 1606 into law, creating Minnesota’s new ban on nudification services and related advertising. The law was set to take effect on Aug. 1, 2026, marking the start of enforcement risk for platforms and developers.
The Minnesota Senate unanimously approved HF 1606, completing legislative action on the bill and sending it to . Reporting on the vote said the measure would require companies and platforms to disable nudification features for Minnesota users.
The Minnesota House passed HF 1606 by a , moving the anti-nudification measure to the . Lawmakers described it as a way to stop that enable .
A Minnesota House committee unanimously advanced , the bill that would ban access to used to create of a person’s image without consent. The proposal was framed as a response to real cases of , not a hypothetical AI risk.