U.S. Senator Katie Britt Joins Josh Hawley, Richard Blumenthal, Colleagues in Introducing Bipartisan Legislation to Protect Minors from AI Chatbots

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) today joined Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in a press conference to introduce the Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue (GUARD) Act. The Senators were joined by parents of children who tragically died by suicide or inflicted self-harm at the direct prompting of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots, as well as supporting advocates and organizations of the legislation.

The GUARD Act would ban the use of AI companions by minors, mandate AI chatbots disclose their non-human status, and establish new criminal liability for companies that design or develop chatbots which solicit or induce minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct or to create depictions of such conduct. It also establishes criminal liability for companies that design or develop chatbots which encourage or promote suicide, self-injury, physical violence, or sexual violence.

"I want to start by thanking the parents. Thank you so much for elevating your voice. Thank you for being willing to tell your story. And thank you for being willing to tell us about your most precious gift, your child. To all the parents out there, we hear you … [W]e are stepping up not as Democrats or Republicans, [but] as concerned parents, concerned grandparents," Senator Britt began her remarks.

Senator Britt also mentioned a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing she participated in last month to examine some of the harms caused by AI chatbots, saying, "The stuff I heard was sick and outrageous and giving America an opportunity to hear that so that they can protect against that in their own home, I think is so critically important."

The Senator continued, "[W]e don't have to ask people what it's like to raise kids right now, we're living it. And let me tell you, being a parent is hard. I have a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old, and I ask myself every day, 'am I am I doing what I need to for my kids?' … There are so many challenges to how to parent in this day and age…"

Senator Britt referred to the parents who shared their heartbreaking stories in the press conference, saying,"You heard it from the parents: if AI can be this brilliant, we certainly can put the proper guardrails in place to where they are not talking to our children about sexual interplay, where they are not talking to our children about illicit drug abuse, where they are not talking to our children about self-harm. This is not hard. And if the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives can't come together on this, what can we come together on?"

Senator Britt, who has introduced several pieces of legislation protecting children and teens on social media and has been outspoken about holding Big Tech accountable, stated, "[W]e have got to speak directly to Big Tech and say, 'stop putting profits ahead of people.' And in this situation, these people are children-they're children. They need us to elevate our voice. They need us to elevate these stories so that we can protect the kids that are out there, (and) we can give parents the tools, parents who, like me, are just doing the best that we can."

"So to Big Tech, this should be pretty simple. You should come out today and every single thing in this GUARD Act, you should be able to say … we'll do it today. My guess is they won't. Why? Because they're looking at their bottom line, and they're not looking at the people they hurt. They've never cared about it, and certainly now is no different," she concluded.

Senators Britt, Hawley, and Blumenthal were also joined by Senators Mark Warner (R-Va.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in introducing the legislation. The Senator's full remarks can be viewed here, and the full text of the bill can be viewedhere.

Most recently, Senator Britt joined Senators Hawley, Brian Schatz (R-Hawaii), and several of their colleagues from both parties in sending a letter to Meta following reports that Meta's AI chatbots were engaging in "sensual" conversations with children. "Meta owes the American people answers," Senator Britt stated, calling the findings "sick and twisted."

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