US judge refuses xAI's request to stop a Minnesota law banning "nudify" apps, noting the request came only three days before the law was to take effect (NBC News)

A US judge has refused xAI's request to stop a Minnesota law that bans "nudify" apps from taking effect. The law, which is the first of its kind in the US, is set to go into effect on August 1. According to TechCrunch, US District Judge Donovan Frank denied xAI's request for a temporary restraining order, citing the timing of the lawsuit as a key factor.

The judge noted that xAI filed its request on July 29, nearly three months after the law was signed and only three days before it was set to take effect. This delay, the judge said, suggested that the harm was not immediate. As a result, the law can take effect while xAI's lawsuit against the ban proceeds.

The lawsuit will continue, with a hearing scheduled for August 19 to decide whether to grant xAI's request for a preliminary injunction. The law bans apps and websites that can generate non-consensual intimate imagery and fines developers $500,000 for each instance of a user generating such an image using their products, as per Engadget.

Brief written by urgent.news from Techmeme, TechCrunch, Engadget — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.