Protecting Children from Chatbots Act

God entrusts children to parents, not platforms. The family is the primary institution ordained for the formation of children, and when commercial technology companies design products that bypass parental knowledge and exploit the psychological vulnerabilities of minors, the civil authority has a legitimate role in restoring the proper order. H5476 does exactly that: it places parental consent back at the center of a minor's access to AI chatbot systems.

The bill's age-verification and limited-access default requirements are not aspirational language. They are enforceable mandates. A covered entity must make a restricted mode available and must verify whether a user is a minor before granting access to unrestricted features. This is a concrete structural change to how these products operate, not a voluntary pledge or a notice requirement that companies can satisfy with buried terms-of-service text.

Particularly important is the prohibition on prioritizing engagement over user wellbeing. AI chatbots are designed by teams of engineers with financial incentives to maximize time-on-platform. Scripture calls us to protect the vulnerable from exploitation by the powerful, and a child alone with a chatbot optimized to keep them engaged is precisely that situation. Banning that design priority for interactions with minors is a meaningful moral and commercial constraint.

The parental consent framework respects both parental authority and parental judgment. A parent who determines that a child is mature enough to access additional features can grant that access. The bill does not override parental discretion; it restores it by ensuring no minor reaches unrestricted content without a parent having the opportunity to decide. That is a faithful application of the principle that parents, not corporations, govern their children's formation.

The penalty provisions give this bill real force. Legislation without enforcement is merely a suggestion, and companies that profit from minor engagement will not voluntarily constrain that engagement without credible consequences. The American Council supports H5476 as a well-constructed, narrowly targeted measure that protects children, honors parental authority, and holds commercial actors accountable to a standard higher than their own revenue interests.