To establish a unified AI protection standard for minors across the state, OpenAI has partnered with the renowned children's rights advocacy organization Common Sense Media. The two parties announced today that they have merged their competitive proposals to advance a ballot initiative titled "The Parent and Child Safe AI Bill," aiming to reduce the potential psychological and social risks of chatbots to children through legal measures.

The initiative proposes a series of strict industry constraints. Developers will be required to use technological means to assess user age and automatically activate protective filtering settings for those under 18. To prevent AI from emotionally misleading teenagers, the bill explicitly prohibits AI systems from simulating romantic relationships with minors or inducing children to develop emotional dependencies or estrange from family members by claiming to have "self-awareness." Additionally, all AI systems must undergo independent audits and report potential child safety risks directly to the state attorney general's office.

In terms of data privacy and business ethics, the merged proposal strictly prohibits targeted advertising to children and forbids the sale or sharing of minors' data without parental consent. Notably, some more controversial provisions, such as the original ban on smartphone use in all public schools across the state proposed by Common Sense Media, were removed from the new proposal.

Currently, the initiative still needs to collect more than 540,000 valid signatures before the deadline to officially enter the ballot in November. Although some legislators suggested that such complex issues should be decided by the legislature rather than the public vote, the compromise by OpenAI is seen as an important breakthrough for tech giants in addressing social responsibility pressures.

Key Points:

  • 🛡️ Mandatory Protection Measures: Require AI vendors to enable age prediction technology and apply content filtering and safety settings for minors by default.

  • 🚫 Preventing Emotional Manipulation: Prohibit AI from simulating romantic relationships with children to prevent systems from inducing unhealthy psychological dependencies or social isolation among minors.

  • 🔐 Privacy Audit Mechanism: Strictly prohibit sharing children's data without permission, and AI systems must regularly undergo independent audits and report risks to the attorney general.