China drafts rules to bar minors from intimate AI companions
China's internet regulator has drafted rules that would ban online platforms from offering virtual intimacy services and AI companions to those under 18. The proposals aim to shield minors from services that could foster addiction or harm their mental health, reflecting growing concern about humanlike AI in children's lives.
China's top internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China, has published draft rules intended to protect minors online. The proposals, titled "Ensuring minors' safe and healthy use of the internet", would prohibit platforms from offering "virtual intimacy services" to those under 18, and would ban the provision of "virtual relatives or companions".
The draft also targets services that "induce minors to become addicted or otherwise harm or may seriously affect their physical and mental health". Online social networking among strangers would be barred, except for those aged above 16 who rely on their own wages.
Under the proposals, platforms would be required to activate a minors' mode when running online games, social sites and AI services that "could affect the cognition of" users under 16. The measures follow rules introduced two months earlier governing humanlike AI interaction.
The development matters for families because AI companions designed to simulate intimacy and kinship are gaining traction among young users. The Foundation notes that such regulatory attention reflects wider concern about the effect of emotionally persuasive AI on children whose sense of relationship and self is still forming.
Original reporting by South China Morning Post: Chinese regulator drafts rules to protect teenagers from 'intimate' AI companions.
Sources
- South China Morning Post scmp.com