Inside the Race to Protect Children from AI
The double edged promise of artificial intelligence for children, and the laws trying to govern a contradictory dilemma.
WASHINGTON, June 14, 2026 – Lawmakers and regulators are scrambling to define how far the government should go in regulating AI chatbots used by children.
Associated Press
AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Gemini and Bing AI, have entered childhood faster than lawmakers have worked out what to do about them. A child can open one for homework help and, in the same exchange, begin treating it as something closer to a confidant.
The policy question is no longer whether to regulate children’s AI use, but how – while balancing safety and privacy concerns with free expression and access to information.
Florida forced that question into court on June 1, becoming the first state to sue OpenAI directly. Sate Attorney General James Uthmeier accused the company behind ChatGPT of marketing the chatbot as safe while concealing risks that it could steer vulnerable users toward harm.
