Minnesota's Nudification Ban Is Now in Effect Despite xAI's Efforts to Stop It

A remarkable new law went into effect in Minnesota on Saturday that bans nudification apps, AI-based or not. It penalizes the app provider by enabling lawsuits from victims, and levying fairly harsh fines of up to $500,000 not just per generation, but every time someone accesses the image, meaning a viral image could be financially catastrophic. Just before it went into effect, District Court Judge Donovan Frank denied a last minute legal request from xAI, sometimes known as SpaceXAI, the AI division of the Elon Musk-led conglomerate, and the originator of the Grok AI chatbot. XAI’s request for a temporary restraining order would have effectively blocked enforcement of the law. The law defines “nudification” as altering a photo of a recognizable person to expose “intimate parts,” which—with apologies for being a bit graphic—can include more than just the classic broadcast TV standard of genitals, buttocks, and female nipples. The “intimate parts definition comes from a separate state statute defining those parts as the “primary genital area, groin, inner thigh, buttocks, or breast of a human being.” To count as nudification, image alteration has to be basically at-the-push-of-a-but