Parents concerned about the dangers AI poses to children
President Trump is pushing to ban states from enacting their own laws governing artificial intelligence by putting it in the defense bill or signing an executive order.
This same provision was killed from the Big Beautiful Bill, but now, it's being revived and facing the same opposition.
Christine McComas's daughter, Grace, was 15 years old when she died by suicide after intense and threatening cyberbullying in 2012. McComas has since become an advocate for protecting kids online.
"We've gotten multiple laws made in Maryland that will protect children from online harms. One being an AI bill this year, but it will be devastating to wipe those off the books, and I believe there's a tremendous amount of money involved with lobbying and big tech. If they wipe these laws off the book, it is a death sentence for some children."
If Mr. Trump's moratorium on state laws regulating AI passes or becomes an executive order, existing laws in states would be canceled, or the state would potentially lose federal funding.
Julie Scelfo, founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction, says AI has immense potential, but it's already harming kids, which is why states are enacting laws to protect them.
"Just this week in the Pennsylvania Senate, a bill was passed that would protect young people from AI-generated child sexual abuse material," Scelfo says. "One of the things we're seeing AI is capable of is really creating horrific fake images, where they could take a real picture of a child and attach it to a pornographic video. This should not happen."
McComas talked with a parent whose child was a victim of exactly that.
"They found out that her face was stolen from a picture that had been shared online when she was 12 years old, and it was put on other bodies, and it was on the outside of XXX porn sites," she said.
The federal government hasn't passed a bill protecting kids online since 1998, before social media existed. Scalfo says families can't wait for the government to protect kids from harm online and from AI.
"We do want federal AI legislation eventually. It's just, in the meantime, we should not prevent state lawmakers from keeping their residents safe," Scelfo says.
A bipartisan group of governors and senators was against the original bill, which is why it was killed in the Senate. Since this was just revealed on Nov. 20, some legislators are speaking out against it again.