Congressman Blake Moore Introduces Bill to Ban Artificial Intelligence Chatbots in Children's Toys

Congressman Blake Moore Introduces Bill to Ban Artificial Intelligence Chatbots in Children's Toys

WASHINGTON - Congressman Blake Moore introduced the AI Children's Toy Safety Act to ban the manufacturing, importation, sale, or distribution of any children's toy or childcare article that incorporates an artificial intelligence chatbot in the United States.

The insertion of AI chatbots into children's toys, many of which are made by companies that explicitly state that their platform should not be used by young children, poses serious data privacy challenges, locks children into addictive and unpredictable engagement patterns with toys, and risks exposing them to explicit content through chatbots trained on data generated by adults.

"Every aspect of how we adopt artificial intelligence must be human-centric. America will continue to compete, innovate, and strive to break barriers in AI development, but we must prioritize basic ethics and restrain these tools where they will negatively impact human activity when it comes to privacy, safety, human development, and addiction," Congressman Moore said. "There is no shortage of data on the impact addictive technologies have on America's youth. Kids have a lot to learn when it comes to relational maturity, self-control, and self-discipline. We cannot allow AI chatbot programs to infiltrate the children's toy or childcare industry or give our kids the idea that playing with AI is somehow similar to building real-life experiences and relationships. The AI Children's Toy Safety Act draws a line in the sand. AI companies shouldn't be using children's toys as a vessel for data collection or influence on minors."

Background:

Nearly all major chatbot service providers, such as OpenAI, Google, Perplexity AI, xAI, and Anthropic, have terms of service that prevent their products from being used by unsupervised children under the age of 13. Yet, these companies have allowed their technology to be licensed by children's toymakers anyway. With over 1,500 AI toy companies currently operating in China, the temptation for U.S.-based toy companies to compete in the global marketplace will only rise.

While toymakers may argue they set guardrails for how children can interact with the chatbots in these toys, these break down quickly and have multiple workarounds. Key testing from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group showed that these toys frequently veered into adult themes, vulgar language, and discussion of explicit content when used consistently.

Many of the toys tested by the U.S. PIRG even discouraged participants from leaving after being told they were finished.

Read more about their research here.

Read the full bill here.