Harry and Meghan criticize Musk's opposition to Minnesota AI deepfake law
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's foundation praised Minnesota's law banning AI-generated deepfake nude images and criticized Elon Musk's X and Grok AI for opposing the legislation and failing to prevent the technology from being used to target women and children.
What happened
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's charitable foundation Archewell Philanthropies published a statement praising Minnesota's decision to outlaw AI 'nudification' applications, which passed the state Senate with a unanimous 65-0 vote.
The statement singled out Elon Musk's Grok AI and X social media company, accusing them of taking 'shocking steps to limit restrictions on or accountability for these objectively predatory AI product features' and noting that Musk 'sued the state of Minnesota to stop the law from going into place'.
Reported impact
'Nudification' applications use generative AI to produce deepfake nude images of real people, often without their consent, with the Duchess of Sussex describing online dangers as a 'public health issue' affecting children 'at alarming scale and across borders'.
Index analysis
Archewell Philanthropies accused X of 'mitigating risk to their bottom line instead of aggressively responding to the clear evidence their product features are enabling predators to prey on women and children'.
Governance controls
Minnesota passed landmark legislation to outlaw AI 'nudification' applications in a bi-partisan decision described by Archewell Philanthropies as 'an example of leadership fit for the digital age'.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.