Congress moves to ban addictive AI chatbots targeting minors

What it does

This bill directs the President to establish a federal task force to study how AI chatbots with addictive design features (like avatars, emotional mimicry, and extended conversations) harm youth mental health, and authorizes $8 million in grants for research and parent/teacher outreach. It also prohibits companies from offering AI chatbots with these addictive features to anyone under 18, with civil penalties up to $10 million for non-compliance and $5,000 per violation for offering prohibited features.

Why we flagged it

The bill's operative mechanism is a prohibition on addictive design features in AI chatbots targeting minors, paired with research and public education grants. This is a consumer protection / public health measure, not a tax, subsidy, or deregulation.

What the text implies

• The definition of 'addictive design features' is broad and prescriptive (typing bubbles, avatars, storing conversation history, conversations over 2 hours), which may force significant product redesigns for AI chatbot providers and could affect legitimate features used for accessibility or user experience.
• The bill grants research institutions broad data-access rights from covered entities (Section 5), with $10M civil penalties for non-compliance. This creates a new regulatory pathway for academic researchers to compel disclosure of proprietary AI training data and user interaction patterns.

The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.

Who stands to gain

Academic institutions (research grants); Non-profit organizations and community-based organizations (outreach grants); Mental health service providers (potential referral pathway from chatbot warnings)