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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday signed a law barring minors from using artificial intelligence (AI) companion chatbots, which are designed to simulate friendship or other personal relationships. The measure is one of the most sweeping steps so far to restrict consumer-facing AI models.
Under the law, operators of chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, must confirm users’ ages and limit certain behaviors of the AI system when a user is younger than 18.
If used by a minor, chatbots would not be able to produce any content that could lead the user to believe it “is human, alive, or experiences human emotions,” the law states.
It also cannot generate outputs that make the user think it “has a personal relationship, professional relationship, or an authority figure role,” nor can it frame the content it produces as being a “personal opinion.”
“No longer will minors have access to chatbots that pretend to be their friends, boyfriends and girlfriends,” Hochul said at a signing ceremony Wednesday.
“No longer will chatbots be able to keep sensitive information about a minor’s emotional and physical health,” Hochul added.
Other U.S. states, including California, have also passed laws restricting chatbots, but the law signed by Hochul imposes some of the broadest language in regulating the technology, prompting backlash from AI companies.
Tech: NYC, an advocacy group for the technology industry in New York, criticized the “vague language” of the law. “Keeping kids safe online should not mean cutting them off from tools that help them learn and prepare for careers,” the group said in a statement.
AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment on the law.
Common Sense Media, a nonprofit advocacy group that provides guidelines for parents about media suitability for children, celebrated the bill’s passage, calling it “the strongest kids’ AI safety bill in the country.”
“AI companies offer chatbots with dangerous features, and even deadly, for kids and teens... Now, those harmful features will be outlawed in New York,” Common Sense Media CEO Jim Steyer said in a statement.
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