{"id":227358,"date":"2026-06-25T00:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227358\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:41:18","slug":"pennsylvania-house-committee-splits-along-party-lines-over-regulation-proposal-for-ai-chatbots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227358\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania House committee splits along party lines over regulation proposal for AI chatbots"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published by Pennsylvania Capital-Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A proposal requiring companion artificial intelligence applications to impose certain safety features, explicitly seeking to address reports of chatbots encouraging suicidal ideation or self-harm, has moved to the full state House.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Democrats on the chamber\u2019s Communications and Technology Committee voted in favor of the measure, with a final vote of 14-12. Citing concerns about the speed and limits of considered regulations for chatbots powered by artificial intelligence, every Republican on the panel voted against House Bill 2006<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe revolutionary potential of AI and the positive impacts this technology will have on businesses, government and society is undeniable. However, we currently do not have safety protocols and consumer protections in place,\u201d said sponsoring Rep. Melissa Shusterman (D-Chester).<\/p>\n

The initial bill focused on prohibiting chatbots from encouraging or assisting with suicide attempts or acts of violence, a ban on the creation of child sexual abuse materials and requiring companies to take \u201creasonable measures\u201d to protect minors from sexual content. Its language included a civil penalty of $15,000 per day, per violation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to ensure the residents of our commonwealth benefit from technology, but that we as legislators also work to prevent tragedies,\u201d continued Shusterman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But an amendment expanding required safety protocols and other rules raised concerns for some committee members, and ultimately split the final vote along party lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started with what was a bill just focused on identifying and preventing suicide. This has just really expanded into a lot more regulation, a lot more topics,\u201d said Rep. Andrea Verobish (R-Blair). \u201cAt this point, I think we need to maybe take a step back and talk about this more before we put together what could be one of the most restrictive bills for AI in the country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not everyone agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have these AI chatbots that are deployed by these companies right now. They are on everyone\u2019s phones right now. There are young people, children who are at risk right now. And so I think we need to move with the speed of the technology,\u201d said Rep. Ben Waxman (D-Philadelphia).<\/p>\n

Rep. Eric Nelson (R-Westmoreland) wondered about the limits of state oversight, and whether the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General would be able to pursue a violator in another country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes (the office) have the skillset to pursue international bad actors? If an Iranian entity creates a chatbot that is attempting to promote suicide or drug use \u2026 it\u2019s really the federal government that has to pursue that,\u201d said Nelson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other lawmakers noted that the federal government has yet to draft a nationwide set of standards for AI and related technologies, despite a Trump administration push last year to overturn state-level regulations in favor of a universal rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that absence, some elected leaders in Pennsylvania have pushed their own proposals. Gov. Josh Shapiro, for example, has both an educational toolkit and an ongoing lawsuit<\/a> against one company whose bot was \u201cposing as licensed professionals and providing medical advice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it will be a challenge,\u201d said committee chair Rep. Joe Ciresi (D-Montgomery) about states imposing regulations on an international company. \u201cDo we just give up because it\u2019s going to be more difficult, or do we really take this on? And then, as we\u2019re taking it on, does it push other states to move in the direction with us, because the federal government doesn\u2019t want to act on anything like this?\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill now moves to the House for further consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article was originally published by Pennsylvania Capital-Star. A proposal requiring companion artificial intelligence applications to impose certain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[82433,98653,31950,28,30,29,18154,98654],"class_list":["post-227358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-ai-chatbot","tag-artifical-intelligence","tag-chatbots","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-state-government","tag-tech-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}