Lawsuit from Musk's company xAI: AI is allowed to generate nude images for the time being

rtr | Elon ‌Musk's AI company xAI ‌on Friday obtained a preliminary injunction in a U.S. appeals court against a Minnesota state law that bans the creation of AI-generated fake nude images. The appeals court in St. Louis temporarily suspended the law with its decision, thereby granting a request from xAI.

Elon Musk's AI company argued that the law was unconstitutional ‌because it restricted freedom of speech protected by the U.S. Constitution. The law, the first of its kind in the country, prohibits website operators and software developers from allowing users to create realistic images that show intimate body parts of an identifiable person that cannot be seen in an original photograph.

A lower court rejected the technology company's application last month.

The US state of Minnesota had asked the court not to suspend the law. It aims to combat the spread of child sexual abuse material ‌generated by AI products like Musk's Grok Imagine on a "staggering scale." xAI, however, stated that the product contains “strict safeguards” against the creation of such images of real people. ⁠The company has begun suing users who circumvent its technological protections.

Several countries are currently investigating measures against xAIs Grok. The European Commission announced an investigation in January. There were concerns that Grok could distribute illegal content, including manipulated images. ⁠The Irish Data Protection Commission opened a formal investigation into Grok in February. French police raided ‌X's offices a few days later as part of a separate investigation. Great Britain and Canada also want to take action against sexual images and deepfakes generated with the help of Grok.