On Tuesday, the US senate passed a new law that would allow victims to sue individuals who use AI models like Grok to generate non-consensual nudes and other sexually explicit images.
Dubbed the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act, it expands on another law passed last year, the Take It Down Act, which made it illegal to distribute nonconsensual intimate images and required social media companies to remove them within 48 hours, by empowering victims to go after the people responsible for generating the images, including seeking damages and imposing restraining orders, Bloomberg noted.
The new law was put forth by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) and passed unanimously.
“Give to the victims their day in court to hold those responsible who continue to publish these images at their expense,” Durbin said in a speech on the Senate floor, via The Hill. “Today, we are one step closer to making this a reality.”
The bill comes as Elon Musk’s X is facing vociferous public backlash after his AI chatbot Grok was used to generate thousands of nudes and sexually explicit images of both adults and children whose photos had been posted to the platform. The volume of these images was so overwhelming that the AI content analysis firm Copyleaks estimated the bot was generating a nonconsensually sexualized image every single minute.
The lack of response from xAI, the Musk-owned AI startup that develops Grok, has only further catalyzed the outrage from the public and regulators alike, to say nothing of Musk’s blasé attitude to it all. He only indirectly addressed the pornographic generations without ever explicitly mentioning them by asserting in a post that “anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.” He also joked that the nonconsensual undressing “trend” was “way funnier” than the trends started by other AI chatbots.
If Musk has failed to comprehend the gravity of the situation, governments have not. Some countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia, have moved to ban access to his website entirely. UK prime minister Keir Starmer warned that he would bring the hammer down on X while the country’s communications regulator, Ofcom, launched an official investigation into the company.
“Imagine losing control of your own likeness or identity,” said Durbin, per The Hill. “Imagine that happening to you when you were in high school. Imagine how powerless victims feel when they cannot remove illicit content, cannot prevent it from being reproduced repeatedly and cannot prevent new images from being created.”
“The consequences can be profound,” he added.
The DEFIANCE Act now needs to pass a vote in the House before it can officially become law. It had already passed a vote in the Senate when it was previously proposed in 2024, but didn’t pass the lower chamber. Now, with the outrage over Grok, it may stand a better chance.
More on AI: Opposition to Elon Musk’s AI Stripping Clothing Off Children Is Nearly Universal, Polling Shows
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