Elon Musk's AI company argues in court for end to state's fake nudity ban
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Attorneys for Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company appeared in court in St. Paul Wednesday to ask for a reversal of the state’s law banning nudification technology.
The law bans AI tools that let users generate photos or videos of people naked. Companies that break the law could be fined $500,000 for each illegal use. Lawmakers who drafted the rule said it will protect people — including children — from becoming subjects of illegal AI nude images.
But the company X.AI LLC sued the state over the law in late July, asking the court to block it from taking effect. In court Wednesday, attorneys for X.AI said the law is too broad.
“There can be no question that the state’s purpose is to restrict speech,” attorney Robert Dunn said.
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He said he agrees that AI-created nude images are a problem. But he said the law would also prevent X.AI users from creating images that contain some nudity but don’t break the law — like parody, or images that users generate of themselves.
Dunn suggested that a modified law, with exceptions for consensually created content depicting adults and parody content, could avoid the freedom of speech concerns.
Dunn also said X.AI has its own policies to stop users from creating nude content, and has banned thousands of users who violated those policies.
But attorneys with Minnesota’s attorney general’s office said those policies aren’t offering enough protection. They cited multiple lawsuits against X.AI from families who say the platform was used to depict their kids in child sexual abuse material.
While disseminating those images is already illegal, attorneys for the state said additional laws are needed to stop the images from being created in the first place. Assistant Attorney General Janine Kimble said the law is a way of “stopping the issue at its source.”
“The alternatives they propose — there’s no evidence that they will or have prevented the horrible flood of content that it sounds like we all agree is not protected and should be stopped,” Kimble said.
The U.S. Department of Justice also weighed in on the case, in a memo filed with the court shortly before Wednesday’s hearing. It said federal laws seek to prevent the spread of illegal AI-generated nude images, but that Minnesota’s law “stretches far more broadly with its strict liability regime to risk paralyzing the AI industry and hampering United States leadership in AI.”
Kimble asked the court to strike the memo from the record. She argued it was submitted too late — after the court’s deadline to file amicus curiae briefs. And she said the federal government does not have a clear stake in the case.
The bill was broadly popular at the state legislature, passing unanimously in the Senate and with only one dissenting vote in the House.
After the hearing, Ellison’s office submitted a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The motion argues that the ban is constitutional, and that X.AI does not have legal standing to claim a violation of the First Amendment on behalf of its users. A hearing on the motion to dismiss is set for November.
Speaking outside the courthouse after Wednesday’s hearing, DFL Sen. Erin Maye Quade, one of the law’s authors, said companies like X.AI should not be allowed to offer those platforms.
“They are giving people the tool to do it,” Maye Quade said. “This is technology that does not need to exist. Our law is narrow. It is specific to the conduct we want to regulate. It implicates nothing else.”
Jessica Guistolise was one of several women who testified at the state legislature in support of this law; she told lawmakers she was the subject of AI-generated pornographic videos created against her will, leaving her afraid to leave her house. She joined lawmakers outside the courthouse Wednesday and said she hopes to see the law remain in place.
“I'm ready to continue to support this and offer my story and my experience all the way up to the Supreme Court if that needs to happen,” Guistolise said.
Judge Donovan Frank heard from lawyers on both sides. He has not yet issued a ruling. Earlier this month, he denied the request for an emergency injunction from X.AI, which would have prevented the law from taking effect on Aug. 1.
For now, the law stands. If the judge rules against the state and in favor of X.AI, Maye Quade said she plans to bring a new ban to the legislature next session.
