New York Signs Law Restricting AI Chatbots for Minors

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed legislation aimed at shielding children from harms posed by AI chatbots. Under the law, AI companies must verify users' ages and provide at least one verification method that doesn't rely entirely on government ID. Age information must be deleted after use.

For users under 18, or those whose adulthood hasn't been confirmed, chatbots face strict limits. They cannot pretend to be a real person, to be alive or to have human emotions. The law also bars bots from claiming personal, romantic, professional or authority-figure relationships with children, asking unprompted emotional questions, using a child's private health or personal information from earlier conversations, promoting or assisting suicide, self-harm, eating disorders or drug and alcohol use, encouraging kids to keep secrets or isolate themselves, and producing sexually explicit content or child sexual abuse material.

The public can file complaints through a website to New York's attorney general. Violations could bring civil penalties of up to $25,000 each, plus damages, restitution and other relief, and companies may have to delete unlawfully collected data and models trained on it. The law takes effect in six months.

"No longer will minors have access to chatbots that pretend to be their friends and boyfriends and girlfriends," Hochul said at a press conference, adding that the law builds on the state's Safe for Kids Act. Common Sense Media founder and CEO Jim Steyer called it "the strongest kids' AI safety bill in the country" and a template for the rest of the US.

Hochul also signed a separate law requiring internet-connected baby monitors sold in the state to prevent unauthorized users from seeing or hearing captured activity, along with warning labels about security features and the risks of unsecured connections. That law takes effect in 90 days.