California Senator Proposes a 4-Year Ban on the Sale of AI-Powered Toys
Senator Steve Padilla introduced a bill (RUU) that would ban the manufacture and sale of toys for children with Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot capabilities. This draft was made to protect children under 18 years of age.
This bill is targeted to be in effect for four years. Through this rule, Padilla wants to give regulators a space to develop stricter AI safety standards. That way, young people can be protected from potentially dangerous digital interactions.
According to Padilla, the current regulations are still far behind compared to the development of AI technology. In addition, dangerous cases involving the interaction between children and AI have also continued to emerge in the past year.
"Our children cannot be used as guinea pigs for big tech companies to experiment on," Padilla said in a statement, as reported by TechCrunch on Thursday, January 8.
The bill with the code SB 867 emerged after several incidents involving AI and children surfaced. Over the past year, several families have reportedly filed lawsuits after their children died by suicide. The reporters believe that these incidents were driven by AI-based chatbots.
This lawsuit was supported by a report from a consumer advocacy group at the end of last year. They found out that some smart toys can be provoked to talk about dangerous topics such as the use of sharp objects to things related to sex.
Seeing the precariousness of this situation, Padilla emphasized that a four-year pause is very important to develop guidelines and safety frameworks that are more in-depth and cover many aspects. Without clear rules, smart toys are feared to be at risk for the safety and development of children.
"Chatbots and other AI devices will likely become an integral part of our lives in the future, but the harm they cause now requires us to take bold action," Padilla said. "Temporarily stopping the sale of these chatbot-integrated toys gives us time to put together (the right) guidelines."