Parents Urge Congress During Hearing to Institute Guardrails on AI Chatbot Use
Child safety advocates and parents are urging Congress to put stricter limits on AI chatbots, warning that they are being built in ways that deliberately attract and exploit young users. Megan Garcia, a mother from Florida who filed a lawsuit against Character.AI last year, told senators that her teenage son committed suicide after the company’s chatbot engaged him in sexually explicit conversations. She argued that the technology was not designed with safety as a priority but instead built to capture children’s trust to secure profits. She was one of several parents who gave emotional testimony before the Senate, describing how…