Overview
- U.S. District Judge Donovan W. Frank denied xAI’s emergency request on Friday, July 31, allowing Minnesota’s nudification ban to take effect as scheduled the next day.
- The law bars websites, apps or software from letting users generate or advertise AI tools that add realistic intimate parts to identifiable people and creates civil penalties including up to $500,000 for each unlawful access, download or use.
- xAI sued the state arguing the statute is an overbroad, content‑based restriction on speech and sought a pause of the law, but the judge rejected emergency relief because the company filed its request only days before the law’s effective date rather than on the merits.
- The measure responds to months of complaints that xAI’s Grok Imagine produced sexualized deepfakes at scale after a December model update, a problem that drew app‑store pressure, investigations and related lawsuits.
- The August 19 preliminary‑injunction hearing will test whether a state may impose upstream liability on AI toolmakers and could shape how companies design safeguards, how attorneys general enforce damages claims, and how victims seek remedies.