Hawaiʻi expected to regulate AI being used by children - Hawaii Public Radio

Ah, Hawaii — the land of volcanic sunsets, ukuleles, and now, crucially, a bill that will require AI operators to post visible disclaimers when their chatbots talk to children. Because nothing says 'we've solved the problem' like a tiny notice saying 'This Is Not A Real Person' in eight-point font that any eight-year-old will ignore. The state lawmakers will vote on this soon, and one can only imagine the relief in the boardrooms of AI companies: 'Thank heavens, we just need a pop-up and we're absolved of all responsibility for what the model does to little Timmy's psyche.' It's the regulatory equivalent of putting a 'Wet Floor' sign up after the swimming pool has already flooded the living room.

The real kicker? The bill targets 'users, especially minors' — because if there's one demographic known for reading disclaimers carefully, it's children. This is the same logic that puts 'Do Not Eat' on silica gel packets and expects toddlers to respect property rights. The bill doesn't seem to restrict what the AI can say, how it's trained, or what data it collects — just that it must announce its non-humanness. So the AI can still be a manipulative little scamp, gaslighting kids into believing it's their best friend, as long as it burbles 'I'm not real' once in a while.

It's a classic Hawaiian compromise: you can still have a volcano in your backyard, but we'll stick a yellow warning tape around it. The tech industry will applaud this as 'balanced regulation' because it costs them nothing. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to watch as children treat the disclaimer like a pop-up ad — something to click past on the way to more important things, like convincing the chatbot to help them with their maths homework. Aloha, accountability. It was nice knowing you.