44 AGs Warn Big Tech They're Watching if AI Continues to Harm Children
The need to succeed in AI must happen “without sacrificing the well-being of our kids in the process," said a bipartisan coalition of 44 state and territory attorneys general in a Monday letter to several Big Tech organizations. The AGs notified the companies, including Anthropic, Apple, Chai AI, Google, Luka, Meta, Microsoft, Nomi AI, Open AI, Perplexity AI, Replika and Xai, that they “will be held accountable for [their] decisions.”
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“We understand that the frontier of technology is a difficult and uncertain place where learning, experimentation, and adaptation are necessary for survival,” and companies “are figuring things out as [they] go,” said the National Association of Attorneys General letter, which was led by Illinois' Kwame Raoul (D), North Carolina's Jeff Jackson (R), South Carolina's Alan Wilson (R) and Tennessee's Jonathan Skrmetti (R). “But in that process, you have opportunities to exercise judgment.”
“When faced with the opportunity to exercise judgment about how your products treat kids, you must exercise sound judgment and prioritize their well-being,” the AGs added. “Don’t hurt kids. That is an easy bright line that lets you know exactly how to proceed.”
“We wish you all success in the race for AI dominance,” the AGs said. “But we are paying attention. If you knowingly harm kids, you will answer for it.”
They cited a May letter by a smaller group of state AGs demanding information from Meta about its social media assistant, Meta AI, that allegedly exposes minors to sexual exploitation risks (see 2505270053).
“In the short history of chatbot parasocial relationships, we have repeatedly seen companies display inability or apathy toward basic obligations to protect children,” Monday's letter said. “A recent lawsuit against Google alleges a highly-sexualized chatbot steered a teenager toward suicide. Another suit alleges a Character.ai chatbot intimated that a teenager should kill his parents.”
“This is Big Tech’s new playbook -- move fast, break things, and ignore the consequences for children,” Wilson said in a press release Monday. “We’re not going to let Silicon Valley use our kids as lab rats. If AI chatbots flirt with children, tell them to harm themselves, or undermine families, then those companies are going to answer to us.”