Ohio bill targets AI deepfake porn with new felony penalties

Ohio’s HB 185 is part of a fast‑building legislative wave aimed squarely at deepfake abuse, particularly non‑consensual sexual imagery. What stands out here is the combination of civil name‑image‑likeness protections with criminal penalties, directly linked to recent scandals around X’s Grok model undressing people—including minors—on request. That is a strong signal that US states will not wait for federal rules if generative systems are obviously enabling harm.

For the broader AI race, these laws don’t stop model development, but they do shift the risk calculus for any company shipping generative tools without robust safety layers. If creating or distributing malicious AI imagery becomes a felony and platforms can be sued over NIL violations, the cost of weak guardrails increases dramatically. That, in turn, may push larger players toward stricter content filters, higher‑quality provenance tools and more active monitoring, while making it harder for smaller or open‑source front‑ends to compete on “anything goes” flexibility.

From an AGI perspective, this is another brick in the emerging wall of downstream liability. As models grow more capable, lawmakers are drawing a line around human dignity, especially sexual and child safety, and that boundary will shape how far companies are willing to let agentic systems go in generating or manipulating realistic media.