By Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Sen. Josh Hawley’s Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue (GUARD) Act advanced out of the Senate Judiciary committee last week. “A Trojan horse for universal online ID checks,” is how Jibran Ludwig of Fight for the Future described it.
The bill would require anyone using an AI chatbot to provide proof of identity and ban minors from interacting with many sorts of AI chatbots entirely.
Unlike some social media age verification bills, it would give parents no right to opt out of the rules the federal government sets on their kids’ technology use.
[ . . . ]3) Invade Everyone’s Privacy
Besides its negative implications for minors, the GUARD Act would be a big blow to privacy, since implementing it would require some sort of identity verification from all AI chatbot users.
The GUARD Act says that any provider of an AI chatbot must require all users to create an account, and that creating an account requires age verification.
“By mandating government ID or equivalent age verification for any American who wishes to interact with an AI chatbot, the bill burdens the speech and associational rights of every adult, not just minors,” Ashkhen Kazaryan of The Future for Free Speech told The Hill.
Because AI tools and chatbots are becoming ubiquitous across all types of digital platforms, the GUARD Act’s age verification scheme could wind up much broader than it might initially appear.
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Ashkhen Kazaryan is a Senior Legal Fellow at The Future of Free Speech, where she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.