In response to the Federal Trade Commission’s announcement that it opened an inquiry into seven major AI companies to understand the negative impact of chatbots on young people, Tech Justice Law Project issued the following statement:
“We cannot allow companies to treat our children as mere ‘collateral damage’ while they run experiments with new technologies and rush their products to market without adequate safety testing. The FTC’s decision to seek information from the biggest AI companies on how they test for and mitigate the psychological and developmental risks of their chatbot products is a welcome step to ensuring that the industry is prioritizing the safety of their users.
“It is unfortunate that these products have already been marketed to and used by children despite glaring failures to implement basic safety features and designing chatbots to exploit vulnerabilities by mimicking real human interaction. Beyond adverse psychological effects, some of these children have paid the price with their lives.”
The Tech Justice Law Project has mounted legal cases against Character.AI and OpenAI on behalf of parents for the wrongful death of their children. TJLP’s groundbreaking lawsuit against Character.AI was the first of its kind, raising public awareness of AI chatbots’ real-world harms.