Joined by parents whose children have committed suicide after being prompted by Artificial Intelligence, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators has unveiled a new bill to regulate those chatbots.
“Every life here, every parent who stands here, represents a life that is absolutely precious and irreplaceable,” said U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri. “The value and power of those lives continue to echo, and I believe they will echo into the adoption of this legislation.”
The GUARD Act, introduced by Hawley and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, would ban A.I. companions for minors. An AI chatbot companion is a digital character that uses artificial intelligence to simulate human-like conversations and relationships.
Another provision would create new crimes for companies which knowingly make available to minors AI companions that solicit or produce sexual content.
During a press conference on Wednesday announcing the bill, Hawley blasted AI companies who say their chatbots are safe.
“They’ve come and testified, they do it all the time, ‘Oh, we are actually very safe,'” Hawley said. “OpenAI just made an announcement that they have perfected their safety guardrails that they said, ‘we’ve gone through the testing and our safety guardrails are excellent.’ Really? Those so-called safety guardrails that they have been testing resulted in the death of one child whose parents are here today. They’ve resulted in sexual conversations and sexual grooming of millions of children. So, I would just say to those companies, ‘endorse this bill!’”
Hawley cited a statistic that over 70% of American children are now using A.I. products.
“Congress hasn’t acted on this issue because of money. It’s because of the power of the tech companies,” he said. “I mean, let’s just be honest.”
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, who is also working with Hawley and Blumenthal, said the bill is needed because A.I. companies are trying to “maximize their profits by addicting our kids to their technology, no matter the cost.”
KMOX Radio submitted this report
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