Parents'group warns lawmakers: AI products are harming children, urge design and labeling rules

Parents and child-safety advocates told the Assembly that lawmakers must act now to protect children from AI-driven harms.

Julie Skelfo, representing Mothers Against Media Addiction, described rising youth mental-health problems and cited generative AI's role in enabling academic cheating, personalized predatory chatbots and the rapid creation of sexually explicit deepfakes. "We are in the midst of a national emergency in youth mental health," she said, urging lawmakers not to repeat past mistakes of deploying technologies at scale without safety requirements.

Skelfo urged warning labels where children are likely to encounter AI, stronger app-store controls, effective parental controls, and product-design obligations that require companies to anticipate and mitigate reasonably foreseeable harms to children. She pointed to the use of nudification and sextortion apps as examples where AI amplifies existing harms and called for statutory standards that treat AI-based products as carrying product-safety obligations when marketed to or readily accessible by children.

Committee members asked for specific policy suggestions. Skelfo said labeling is only a first step; she recommended design requirements, independent app-store ratings, and regulations that ensure only reputable providers offer mental-health support tools to youth. The hearing record shows parents'group testimony prompted several legislators to seek follow-up language to strengthen child-safety protections in any forthcoming bills.

Chairs said they will post all written testimony online and that staff will work with witnesses on technical details.