Minnesota Says xAI's Grok Created 'Marketplace for Digital Sexual Violence'
Minnesota is defending HF-1606, a first-of-its-kind law that restricts AI tools from creating realistic sexual images of identifiable people. Attorney General Keith Ellison says xAI is unlikely to win its constitutional challenge and has not shown enforcement would cause irreparable harm. The law, effective August 1, bars platforms and developers from letting users generate intimate images that did not appear in the original image of an identifiable person, with penalties up to $500,000 per image. xAI sued to block the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment and could sweep in protected images such as shirtless photos or political satire. Minnesota says the measure targets technology enabling digital sexual abuse, not protected expression, and was passed overwhelmingly after reports of a man using social media photos to create sexual images of dozens of women. The dispute now turns on whether the law regulates speech or a harmful technology.
