California could get 4-year ban on toys with AI chatbots

California State Senator Steve Padilla, a Democrat from San Diego, introduced a bill in the California State Assembly on Monday that would impose a 4-year moratorium on the sale of toys with artificial intelligence chatbot capabilities to children under 18, according to a new report from Technological crisis. The goal of this legislation, known as Senate Bill 867, is to provide sufficient time for the development of safety rules to protect children from AI-powered toys that initiate inappropriate conversations and instruct children how to harm themselves.

“Chatbots and other AI tools may become an integral part of our lives in the future, but the dangers they pose now require us to take bold action to protect our children,” Senator Padilla said in a statement. put online.

“Our safety regulations around this type of technology are in their infancy and will need to grow as exponentially as the capabilities of this technology. Suspending the sale of these chatbot-integrated toys gives us time to develop the appropriate safety guidelines and framework to follow for these toys. Our children cannot be used as lab rats for big tech to experiment with,” Padilla continued.

There have been several horror stories over the past few months in which AI-enabled toys were chatting inappropriately with children. FoloToy, which makes a teddy bear named Kumma, began talking about sexual fetishes with children last year until OpenAI cut off its access to GPT-4o. The teddy bear would also show children where to go find knives.

Mattel announced a partnership with OpenAI in June 2025 this was supposed to see the company make an AI-assisted toy, but that hasn’t happened yet. The consumer advocacy group, Public Interest Group Education Fund, also tested some AI toys and found that many had limited parental controls and could tell children where to find dangerous items like guns and matches. One of the main takeaways is that the guardrails seemed to fail the longer someone interacted with an AI toy.

AI chatbots have recently come under fire in various contexts, especially since a number of people have committed suicide after interacting with them. Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Trade Commission last year over consumer complaints about OpenAI’s ChatGPT that included examples of AI-induced psychosis. Complaint from Utah woman recounts how chatbot tutored her son not taking medication and insisted that his parents were dangerous. Putting that kind of capability into a teddy bear would obviously cause even bigger problems.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month which ostensibly prohibits states from passing their own laws to regulate AI. And while Trump’s authority to do this with an executive order is questionable in itself, putting that question aside, the EO provides exceptions to laws regarding protecting the safety of children.

It is not yet clear whether Padilla’s new legislation will pass. But even if it passes the California State Assembly, it could be vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat allied with big tech and loves to veto bills that maybe it’s too good for humanity. In October, Newsom vetoed the No Robo Bosses Act, which would have prevented companies from automating firings and disciplinary decisions against workers.