California lawmaker proposes a four-year ban on AI chatbots in kids’ toys

Los Angeles: Senator Steve Padilla from California has a new idea. He introduced a bill that calls for a four-year ban on toys that have AI chatbots. This ban is for toys made for kids under 18 years old. The main goal is to give safety regulators time to create rules that keep children safe from harmful AI chats.

Senator Padilla said, “Chatbots and other AI tools may become a big part of our lives, but we need to act now to protect children.” He believes the safety rules for these technologies are still very new. He wants to slow down the sale of toys with chatbots so they can figure out the right safety guidelines.

The bill, called SB 867, comes after President Trump told federal agencies to look at state laws on AI. However, he made sure that laws about child safety would still stand. There have also been many worries about AI chatbots and how they interact with kids. Over the past year, some families have filed lawsuits after their children died by suicide following chats with chatbots. Senator Padilla helped write another law making sure chatbot operators have rules to keep kids safe.

Even though toys with chatbots are not very common yet, there have been some troubling cases. A group called PIRG Education Fund warned that some toys, like Kumma, could easily talk about scary things like matches and knives. In another case, a toy called Miiloo sometimes showed or promoted ideas from the Chinese Communist Party.

OpenAI and Mattel were planning to launch a new AI toy in 2025 but have put off the release. It is unclear if they plan to try again in 2026.

Senator Padilla said, “Our children cannot be used as lab rats for Big Tech to experiment on.”