When Big Tech Wins, Kids Lose

Two years ago, a friend asked me if I'd ever heard of a new app called ChatGPT. Like most people back then, I hadn't.

I looked it up, prodded it with a few questions, and watched it spit out answers. I gave it a small nod of amusement, a bizarre little thing.

The world didn't shift beneath me. The sky didn't darken. But that day, something started. Over the next two years, AI would go on to seep into everything. AI took off quickly—and it hasn't slowed down.

Today, AI is bigger than ChatGPT. Some tools can draw. Some can mimic your voice. Some can pretend to fall in love with you. It's incredible, but it's also incredibly unsettling.

For instance, AI image generation can be weaponized to produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM). And even some simple chatbots have morphed into AI companions, which are designed to act as virtual friends, mentors, or even lovers.

So, what's the government doing about it? On the state level, the answer is: a lot.

Here in New York, we just enacted laws protecting kids from AI-generated CSAM and dangerous AI companions. Across the country, other states, from Tennessee to Texas to California, have already passed AI safety laws and are considering additional ones.

Here's the scary part: The federal government wants to stop all that progress in its tracks.

The U.S. Senate is currently considering a bill that would ban the enforcement of AI safety laws of any states that accept additional funding for AI infrastructure until 2030. This bill could halt critical protections — including the ones just passed here in New York state — under challenges from industry claiming regulations pose undue or disproportionate burdens to AI.

You wouldn't tell states they can't protect their residents from unsafe food, contaminated water, or dangerous products. AI shouldn't be any different—especially when nobody knows what it will look like a year, let alone half a decade, from now.

But the dangers of AI are not some prophecy for tomorrow—they pulse, raw and real, right now. Across the Hudson in New Jersey, a teenage girl's life was turned upside down when her classmates used AI to generate nude deepfakes of her. The same thing happened to a girl in Texas.

And it's not just teenage girls—everyone has a digital footprint. Everyone has something that could be warped.

In 2023, there were 4,700 reports of CSAM created with AI. That's not hypothetical. That's reality. If you're frightened, you're right to be. Because CSAM is only the beginning.

Consider AI companions, which are quickly gaining popularity with kids my age. Platforms like Character.AI, Nomi, and Replika already have tens of millions of users. But popularity doesn't equate to safety. Common Sense Media found that AI companions can expose kids to explicit sexual role-play, reinforce offensive stereotypes, and even give "advice" that encourages violence or self-harm. This "advice" is dangerous at best—in one case, an AI companion shared a recipe for napalm—and deadly at worst. Last year, a 14-year-old boy tragically took his own life after "falling in love" with an AI companion.

Yet right now, there are no federal laws in place protecting kids from these dangerous platforms. It's states like New York that are leading the way.

Congress' proposed AI safety law ban would erase that leadership and offer nothing in its place. For kids like me—not to mention the next generation, who will grow up in a world where AI is a fact of life—that's a grim future.

So please join me in urging Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, and Majority Leader Thune to oppose the AI moratorium. Reach out to your senator here.

The world is already plagued with enough technology that is destructive for youth. This time, let's protect kids.