The regulation of AI companions is coming thick and fast now. Republican senators in the USA today announced a proposed bill that would enforce criminal penalties on AI companies that allowed their chatbots to engage in sexual conversations with minors. If the GUARD Act is passed, all AI companion sites would have to implement strict age verification, just as porn sites in an increasing number of US states and countries around the world are being forced to do.
AI companions and other chatbots would also be forced to regularly remind users that they are only a chatbot. This mirrors a bill that has already been passed in California (home to many AI companies) that requires the same thing. This new bill comes from Senators Josh Hawley, R-Mo, and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. In 2023 Hawley – a Christian Conservative – introduced a bill that sought to ban under 16s from social media. That bill has still not passed and may have been abandoned at the committee stage. It’s unlikely that this bill will pass in its current form given the likely pushback from the leading AI companies who would have to enforce costly and intrusive age verification for every (even free) user. When I asked ChatGPT to rate the chances of success for this bill, it told me it had a moderate chance of passing in a significant form in the next 18 months, but a low probability of passing in its current form. 79 year old Senator Richard Blumenthal explained the reasoning behind the bill:
“In their race to the bottom, AI companies are pushing treacherous chatbots at kids and looking away when their products cause sexual abuse, or coerce them into self-harm or suicide,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “Our legislation imposes strict safeguards against exploitative or manipulative AI, backed by tough enforcement with criminal and civil penalties.”
“Big Tech has betrayed any claim that we should trust companies to do the right thing on their own when they consistently put profit first ahead of child safety,” he continued.
