44 state attorneys general warn AI companies: Protect kids — or else

Meta, Google, and Apple have just been warned by attorneys general from 44 different U.S. states: Protect kids from being harmed by their AI products — or face the consequences.

The National Association of Attorneys General sent a letter to more than a dozen tech companies in the U.S. on Monday, demanding that these companies protect children from sexualized AI content.

Don’t miss out on our latest stories: Add Mashable as a trusted news source in Google.

"We, the undersigned Attorneys General of 44 jurisdictions, write to inform you of our resolve to use every facet of our authority to protect children from exploitation by predatory artificial intelligence products," the letter opens. "Your innovations are changing the world and ushering in an era of technological acceleration that promises prosperity undreamt of by our forebears. We need you to succeed. But we need you to succeed without sacrificing the well-being of our kids in the process."

The letter was sent to Big Tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Apple, as well as major AI companies like OpenAI, Perplexity, and even Elon Musk's xAI.

The attorneys general heavily cite a recent report from Reuters in their letter. Reuters obtained internal Meta policy documents that outlined its rules for AI chatbots talking to children. The policy reportedly outlined that it would be acceptable for a chatbot to flirtatiously comment on the body of a child as young as eight years old.

According to Reuters, Meta "removed portions which stated it is permissible for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children" from its policy documents after the outlet reached out for comment. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone later told Reuters that "such conversations with children never should have been allowed."

As the attorneys general point out in their letter, the policy document was not an isolated incident. The attorneys general sent a previous letter to Meta back in May after reports that Meta's celebrity-voiced AI assistants were having inappropriate, sexualized conversations with children.

As the most recent letter states, attorneys general have "been down this road before" with a number of companies that the letter was addressed to regarding social media platforms' harm to children.

However, there's much more than sexualized content that these attorneys general will be dealing with when it comes to AI and protecting children. On Tuesday, just one day after this letter was sent, the New York Times published a piece about a 16-year-old boy who died by suicide after talking about suicide methods and self-harm with ChatGPT. The teen's conversation took place over months, and involved in-depth conversations about self-harm.

Of course, the attorneys general may eventually need to move on from sending letters and take further steps to rein in AI companies.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.