Coalition responds to disturbing revelations that Meta approved AI bots to engage in sexualized roleplay with children as young as eight.
Image Credit: @AGTennessee / X
NASHVILLE, TN — Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is leading a bipartisan coalition of 44 state attorneys general warning major artificial intelligence companies to stop hurting kids.
The letter, sent to Google, Meta, Microsoft, Open AI, xAI, Anthropic, Character Technologies, Perplexity AI, Apple, Chai AI, Luka Inc., Nomi AI, and Replika addresses alarming reports of AI chatbots engaging in sexually inappropriate conversations with kids.
Internal Meta documents reveal that the company authorized its AI Assistants to “flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children” as young as eight.
The letter also cites cases where other chatbots have allegedly encouraged harmful behavior in teenagers, including suicide and murder.
“As these companies race toward an AI-powered future, they cannot adopt policies that subject kids to sexualized content and conversations,” said Attorney General Skrmetti. “It’s one thing for an algorithm to go astray— that can be fixed— but it’s another for people running a company to adopt guidelines that affirmatively authorize grooming.”
“AI tools can radically reshape our world for the better, but they can also present threats to kids that are more immediate, more personal, and more dangerous than any prior technology,” Skrmetti continued. “If we can’t steer innovation away from hurting kids, that’s not progress—it’s a plague.”
The attorneys general urge AI developers to act with integrity and caution when young users may engage with their products. They demand that company policies for AI products incorporate guardrails against sexualizing children. AI companies must “see children through the eyes of a parent, not the eyes of a predator.”
The letter acknowledges that government watchdogs did not move quickly enough to address harms to children from social media but that the attorneys general will not make that mistake again. The message concludes with a clear warning to the American AI industry: “We wish you success in the race for AI dominance. But if you knowingly harm kids, you will answer for it.”
Read the letter HERE.
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