Minnesota senator considers banning recreational use of AI chatbots for minors – InForum

ST. PAUL — Minnesota lawmakers are considering additional state regulations for AI, and some have bipartisan support.

“I’m not a Luddite,” Sen. Erin Mae Quaid, DFL Apple Valley, said Monday. “I don’t hate AI. The potential for AI and other technological advances can be immense if done correctly, but the way consumer AI is deployed is unfolding as a five-alarm alarm for our society, with devastating and deadly consequences for both humans and our constitutional rights.”

Senators took up a series of AI-related bills on Monday, March 9th. Here’s an overview:

SF3098, Prohibition of Monitoring and Dynamic Pricing
SF1857, Prohibition of Entertainment Chatbots for Minors
SF1856 prohibits the use of health insurance AI in the usage review process
SF1886 requires companies to disclose when they use artificial intelligence

Restricting AI for minors is an unusual partnership between May Quaid and Sen. Eric Lucero (R-St. Louis). Michael said he has long believed that “the law has not quite caught up with technology.”

“Every time we have a hearing on the Lucero-May-Quade bill or a series of bills, it’s definitely going to raise some eyebrows. But the reality is that innovation is happening faster than the government can keep up with,” Lucero said Monday.

The Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee considered several AI bills on Monday: SF3098 on dynamic pricing and SF1857 on chatbots for minors. The committee ran out of time and the bills were deferred for later consideration.

The recreational use of chatbots aimed at minors, including ChatGPT, Character.AI, Gemini and Claude, dominated Monday’s hearing. This bill would not only prohibit recreational use, but would actually create a civil cause of action for damages resulting from the use of chatbots.

“They provide camaraderie, romance, and entertainment through text and voice-based conversations on virtually any topic, and are built for maximum engagement so they can ratchet up conversations and keep people coming back. They speak like humans,” May Quaid said on Monday. “We have seen an alarming number of headlines about adults dying by suicide, having to be institutionalized, harming others or themselves, or inciting terrorism.”

Jarrett Catlin, TechNet’s state AI policy advisor, said the bill could limit useful tools for minors and that a complete ban would make Minnesota an outlier among states’ responses to AI.

“The issue with Senate File 1857 is not whether children deserve protection, but whether this bill’s approach cuts them off from useful tools,” he said.

Another May-Quaid bill introduced last session, HF1606, which would ban AI “undressing” technologies, is also gaining attention. The bill unanimously passed the House Commerce, Finance and Policy Committee on Tuesday morning and will now be sent to the House Judiciary, Finance and Civil Law Committee.