Posted on 09/17/2025 9:21:11 AM PDT by simpson96
Parents and online safety advocates on Tuesday urged Congress to push for more safeguards around artificial intelligence chatbots, claiming tech companies designed their products to “hook” children.
“The truth is, AI companies and their investors have understood for years that capturing our children’s emotional dependence means market dominance,” said Megan Garcia, a Florida mom who last year sued the chatbot platform Character.AI, claiming one of its AI companions initiated sexual interactions with her teenage son and persuaded him to take his own life.
“Indeed, they have intentionally designed their products to hook our children,” she told lawmakers.
“The goal was never safety, it was to win a race for profit,” Garcia added. “The sacrifice in that race for profit has been and will continue to be our children.”
Garcia was among several parents who delivered emotional testimonies before the Senate panel, sharing anecdotes about how their kids’ usage of chatbots caused them harm.
The hearing comes amid mounting scrutiny toward tech companies such as Character.AI, Meta and OpenAI, which is behind the popular ChatGPT. As people increasingly turn to AI chatbots for emotional support and life advice, recent incidents have put a spotlight on their potential to feed into delusions and facilitate a false sense of closeness or care.
It’s a problem that’s continued to plague the tech industry as companies navigate the generative AI boom. Tech platforms have largely been shielded from wrongful death suits because of a federal statute known as Section 230, which generally protects platforms from liability for what users do and say. But Section 230’s application to AI platforms remains uncertain.
In May, Senior U.S. District Judge Anne Conway rejected arguments that AI chatbots have free speech rights after developers behind Character. AI sought to dismiss Garcia’s lawsuit. The ruling means
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
(sigh) It's hopeless.
My three grandsons, 5, 11 and 13 are homeschooled and have no access to screens, no TV, pc, cellphones. They read books, even the 5 y.o.. They pplay outside. They are learning to play musical instruments. Their family is not rich, not even median income. The 13 y.o. is teaching himself calculus and his dad says he is on the phone too much but on the other end of the line is usually an aeronautical engineer.
👍
Outstanding.
They are no doubt a credit to their parent’s upbringing.
Yes need Congress to push for more safeguards.
The sooner people stop voting democrat the sooner things get to the normal stage.
Or people need to honeschool or be given tax breaks to send their kids to private school.
Are they talking about AI or saturday morning cartoons? Kids are a market sector, welcome to capitalism.
“Our children are not experiments”
Then stop sending them to public schools.
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