California Mandates AI Integrity: New Law Requires Chatbots to Protect Users
California has enacted the nation’s first law specifically targeting AI integrity in chatbots. SB 243 requires AI companions to disclose their artificial nature and implement crisis intervention protocols for users expressing self-harm. The legislation represents a fundamental shift from focusing solely on AI intelligence to prioritizing built-in ethical safeguards.
California is forcing a radical rethink of what we should expect from our AI companions. The state’s newly passed Senate Bill 243 represents what analysts are calling the nation’s first concrete step toward establishing “artificial integrity” as a legal requirement for AI systems.
Rather than focusing on traditional tech regulation areas like data privacy or algorithmic bias, this legislation tackles something more fundamental: how AI systems interact with human psychology. According to reports from the Los Angeles Times, the bill mandates that AI companions must disclose they’re not human, intervene when users express self-harm, limit sexualized interactions with minors, and publish their crisis-response protocols.