Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether, following the Government's announcement on measures to address AI chatbots producing romantic and sexual content for children, it plans to take further steps to close gaps relating to chatbots providing safeguarding advice and misleading information to child users.

We have taken a power in the Crime and Policing Act to close loopholes in the Online Safety Act regarding AI chatbots. This means unregulated chatbots will have to comply with duties under the Online Safety Act to protect their users from illegal content once the relevant legislation is passed.

Alongside this we are considering the evidence from the ‘Growing up in the online world’ consultation. Some responses felt that chatbots could support children’s wellbeing. However, we also heard concerns about how these services can provide children with harmful, misleading, or inaccurate advice.

Following the publication of the progress statement in June, we plan to provide a further update on the consultation in the coming weeks.