A federal judge has declined xAI’s emergency request to halt a new Minnesota law targeting apps and websites that create non-consensual AI-generated intimate images, allowing it to take effect on 1 August. The ruling matters because the law is described as the first of its kind in the US and could impose major liability on developers of so-called “nudify” tools, while xAI’s wider constitutional challenge remains unresolved.

Judge Donovan Frank said xAI had not shown that immediate harm justified blocking the law, noting that the company sued nearly three months after it was signed and only three days before enforcement began. The law can fine developers $500,000 for each non-consensual intimate image generated through their products and covers realistic altered or generated images depicting intimate parts of identifiable people; a further hearing on xAI’s request for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for 19 August.