Senators ask AI companies for safety disclosures after teen suicides

A bipartisan group of senators is calling on leaders in AI industry to commit to publicly disclosing more information about safety practices.

A bipartisan group of senators is calling on leaders in the artificial intelligence industry to commit to publicly disclose more information about how the industry thinks about risk, including possible harms to children.

The group, led by Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Katie Britt, R-Ala., sent letters Thursday to eight tech companies that are working on leading-edge AI models. The senators wrote that companies have been inconsistent in their transparency practices, including how much information they publicly disclose and when.

“In the past few years, reports have emerged about chatbots that have engaged in suicidal fantasies with children, drafted suicide notes, and provided specific instructions on self-harm,” the senators wrote.

“These incidents have exposed how companies can fail to adequately evaluate models for possible use cases and inadequately disclose known risks associated with chatbot use,” they wrote.

The letters are a sign of the stepped-up scrutiny AI is getting in Congress, especially in the wake of teen suicides that families have blamed partly on AI chatbots. Two senators introduced legislation in October to ban companies from offering AI chatbots to minors entirely, and there was bipartisan backlash last month after the industry sought federal help to pre-empt state efforts to regulate AI.