Regulating artificial intelligence will be ‘colossal task’ for Alabama lawmakers

This story was originally published by the Alabama Reflector.

Alabama lawmakers said Wednesday they have a “colossal task” ahead of them to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to protect children.

The Commission on Artificial Intelligence and Children’s Safety – a group of lawmakers, child advocates, a representative from the Attorney General’s office and the Department of Mental Health – heard from experts from across the country at its monthly meeting. They told the commission about different types of legislation, how data is used in AI and the importance of educating the public on it.

“We’re going to have to take baby steps instead of going all in. There’s so much that goes in. It’s not only our budgets, but the work of the past that we still have to educate the people that are now in the Legislature, other associations, and everybody that helps us to get to where we are currently,” said Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, at the end of the meeting. “This is a colossal task.”

Andrew Kingman, president of Mariner Strategies, a company that helps draft legislation on technology, said that whatever regulatory path Alabama takes, lawmakers must ensure that the language is clear. 

“From the business community’s perspective, what companies are looking for is consistency and certainty,” Kingman said. “The more that laws are consistent across states, the more that laws are clear, the more preferential businesses are to those laws.”

He said that laws passed this year in Colorado and Connecticut are a good model to follow. The laws require AI developers to provide clear disclosure to minors that chatbots are not human, and prohibit rewards to encourage engagement. 

“Where there is clarity again is this Connecticut and Colorado framework, and those are in effect right now,” Kingman said. “There really isn’t any signal that either of those laws would be litigated on First Amendment grounds.”

NetChoice, a group that advocates for limited internet government control, free speech and enterprise across the country, opposed a 2025 Alabama bill, that passed in 2026, that requires age verification on app stores. The group fought many internet laws nationwide, saying that age verification violates the First Amendment.

Kingman said that chatbots can tell how old a user is based on their behavior, but passing a law requiring a user to submit a form of identification to prove their age to use a chatbot is not advised. 

“It really deprives individuals of their ability to be anonymous online and effectively leads to more data collection rather than less data collection,” he said. “On the litigation side, courts have generally found that more data collection is not necessarily a narrowly tailored solution.”

Nancy Brinson, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Alabama, said that chatbots are not only collecting explicit data – like a child’s name, age and general location – but also implicit data. That, she said, is how chatbots know what a user is interested in, how they are feeling and their personality.

“These are things that could potentially be harmful, especially to children, and we don’t necessarily want that information to be shared, but it can be, and it is, collected by these systems,” she said.

She told the commission that any legislation they pass should be transparent, inform parents and put the internet control in the hands of parents. 

“We need to have parents with both education about these practices, they need to understand what’s going on, as well as active mediation tools to monitor, to understand and manage their children’s data privacy,” Brinson said.

A 2024 study by the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University observed over 3,800 adolescents. It found that they were likely to become dependent or addicted to AI and chatbots, but it was not necessarily linked to a decline in mental health. 

A smaller 2026 study conducted by Drexel University found that teens self-reported via Reddit, an anonymous social network, that their dependent use of chatbots was causing academic struggles and strained relationships.

The Legislature in February passed a law requiring app stores to have age verifications for minors. Rep. Ben Robbins, R-Sylacauga, and chair of the commission, asked why age verifications for chatbots, if they are dangerous, should not be the next step.

“In your opinion, it’s highly addictive, it’s dangerous, and you go through all these other levels, and you say we shouldn’t ban it,” Robbins said. “Why would we not ban an addictive, harmful product until you reach a certain age and say you have the ability to understand how to use it well.”

Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, said that putting an age limit on chatbots takes away parental rights and can create issues within families. 

“You’re taking away parental rights and the judgment that they’re in a good position to make about their own children,” he said. “Our actions have multiple effects, right? Not just the one we intend, and very often the one we intend doesn’t even work.”

Epstein told the commission that educating children, parents, fellow lawmakers and school systems about data collection and AI is important.

“Once people have very strong opinions, it is very hard to change those opinions,” he said. “We’ve been a little bit too slow here in acting, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get started. Why not go where we can make the biggest difference. Go to our children, we can make a big difference with them.”

Sen. Matt Woods, R-Jasper, said making sure that parents maintain control over their child’s information is important, and that will be a consideration in potential legislation.

“How we can best protect our children is going to be paramount moving forward. As we get this information from these experts, I think we’ll be able to formulate, hopefully, draft legislation, approaching next session, that’ll make our state safer from a data driven perspective for our children,” he said.

Gudger said in an interview after the meeting that hearing from experts is about finding the right fit for Alabama and protecting its children.

“I think an underlying thing over here on everything that comes in front of us from the first time that we’ve met until today, and even next month, we’ll be protecting children,” he said. “We don’t like regulations, if we don’t have to put it there. If you’re dealing with particularly children and public safety for Alabamians, then that’s going to trump regulations.”

The Key Points box was written by Anna Barrett.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.