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Dana Ferguson
St. Paul

Judge denies X.AI effort to halt ban on tech that depicts people nude without permission

An iPhone displaying the Grok app.
In this photo illustration a iPhone screen is displaying the Grok app and logo. Elon Musk's company X.AI has been widely criticized following reports that its AI tool Grok has been used to make sexualized images of children and undress women. Minnesota is trying to ban the technology, and the company is suing.
Anna Barclay/Getty Images

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A federal judge in St. Paul on Friday denied an emergency request to block a Minnesota law banning artificial intelligence technology that can depict a person naked without their permission.

Judge Donovan Frank rejected X.AI’s call to halt the law before it could take effect on Saturday. The company’s court challenge can continue, and Frank scheduled a hearing for next month.

X.AI sued the state over the law earlier this week, alleging it would infringe on the company’s First Amendment Rights, as well as those of its users in Minnesota. It said without the immediate injunction blocking the law, it would have to turn off certain features on its AI model, Grok.

Attorney General Keith Ellison in a memo of opposition Friday said the law wasn’t aimed at restricting free speech, but rather placing guardrails on a tool that can cause harm to Minnesotans. He also argued the request for emergency action coming days before the law was set to take effect “manufacturing an unnecessary emergency” for the court to address.

Ellison also took issue with the company’s argument that it could face penalties for up to $500,000 each time a violation of the law occurred. People portrayed in the deepfake images could also sue AI companies for damages.

“Each day Minnesota’s nudification ban is stayed, more nudified images will proliferate and be used to demean, objectify, and harass women and children,” Ellison wrote. “X.AI’s monetary interests should not outweigh the privacy interests of the people of the State of Minnesota.”

The state also said there would be exceptions to the law for artistic expressions and satirical images or videos. That was a point of contention for X.AI in bringing the challenge.

The ban is the first of its kind in the country. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL- Apple Valley, said it’s an extension of an existing ban on deepfakes generated by AI. It’s meant to prevent the creation of the images and videos before they can be disseminated.

“This technology will be illegal in Minnesota, and the big tech corporations that profit off of image-based sexual abuse will be held accountable,” she said earlier this week.

Maye Quade said some AI companies worked with the lawmakers when they drafted the bill.

The court will hold a hearing in the case on August 19.