California becomes the first state to regulate AI chatbots

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California has become the first state to officially instruct AI chatbots to refrain from emotional manipulation.

On October 13th, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 243 into law, a piece of legislation aimed squarely at regulating the fast-growing (and occasionally weird) world of companion AI chatbots.

The law, described by State Senator Anthony Padilla as the country’s “first-in-the-nation AI chatbot safeguards,” lays out some pretty straightforward rules: if your chatbot is so convincing that a “reasonable person” might think they’re chatting with a real human, you have to tell them it’s not.

In other words, no more “AI girlfriends” pretending to be real people, unless they come with a big, flashing “I’m a robot” sign.

Starting next year, companies running these emotional support AIs will also need to report annually to California’s Office of Suicide Prevention about what they’re doing to detect and respond to suicidal ideation among users.

The office will publish those reports publicly, adding a rare layer of transparency to an industry that’s been growing faster than regulators can keep up.

Newsom didn’t mince words when signing the bill, warning that without proper guardrails, emerging technologies like chatbots and social media “can exploit, mislead, and endanger our kids.”

The governor paired the announcement with a handful of other child-safety-focused tech laws, including new age-gating rules for devices, declaring, “Our children’s safety is not for sale.”

The move caps off a busy season for California’s AI watchdog efforts.

Just days earlier, Newsom also signed Senate Bill 53, a sweeping AI transparency law that sparked months of debate (and more than a few angry blog posts) from major AI companies worried about overregulation.

Between that and SB 243, California is positioning itself as America’s unofficial AI rulemaker, the state that’s not waiting for Washington to figure out what a chatbot even is.

Whether these laws make AI safer or just more bureaucratic remains to be seen, but one thing’s clear: the robots in California just got a new set of rules to follow.