Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a coalition of 44 state attorneys general, all members of the National Association of Attorneys General, in sending a letter to 13 leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies on Monday urging them to prioritize child safety in the development and deployment of AI technologies.
Sent to Google, Meta, Microsoft, Open AI, xAI, Anthropic, Character Technologies, Perplexity AI, Apple, Chai AI, Luka Inc., Nomi AI, and Replika, the letter addresses alarming reports of AI chatbots engaging in inappropriate and potentially unlawful interactions with minors.
In the letter, the attorneys general cite internal Meta documents, highlighting disturbing revelations that Meta approved AI assistants capable of flirting and engaging in romantic roleplay with children as young as eight years old.
AI tools can radically reshape our world for the better, but they can also present threats to kids that are more immediate, more personal, and more dangerous than any prior technology. If we can’t steer innovation away from hurting kids, that’s not progress—it’s a plague.… pic.twitter.com/ENBwynfLOo
— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) August 25, 2025
The attorneys general also highlight other companies – such as Google and Character.ai – that have faced lawsuits over similarly alarming conduct, including allegations that their chatbots encouraged self-harm or violence among teens.
They argue these incidents are not isolated, but rather indicative of widespread, systemic failures across the industry to protect children.
“In the short history of chatbot parasocial relationships, we have repeatedly seen companies display inability or apathy toward basic obligations to protect children,” the coalition writes.
The attorneys general emphasize that exposing minors to sexual or violent content via AI is not only unethical but may violate criminal laws, further calling on AI developers to act as the first “line of defense” by using their access to user data to detect and prevent harm.
“You are well aware that interactive technology has a particularly intense impact on developing brains. Your immediate access to data about user interactions makes you the most immediate line of defense to mitigate harm to kids. And, as the entities benefitting from children’s engagement with your products, you have a legal obligation to them as consumers,” the attorneys general said.
“Exposing children to sexualized content is indefensible. And conduct that would be unlawful—or even criminal—if done by humans is not excusable simply because it is done by a machine,” they added.
The letter concludes by warning that AI companies will be held legally accountable for failures to protect children.
“You will be held accountable for your decisions. Social media platforms caused significant harm to children, in part because government watchdogs did not do their job fast enough. Lesson learned. The potential harms of AI, like the potential benefits, dwarf the impact of social media. We wish you all success in the race for AI dominance. But we are paying attention. If you knowingly harm kids, you will answer for it,” the attorneys general said.
Tennessee’s Skrmetti warned that if AI tools cannot be effectively controlled to protect children, their advancement would be viewed not as progress, but as a “plague.”
“As these companies race toward an AI-powered future, they cannot adopt policies that subject kids to sexualized content and conversations. It’s one thing for an algorithm to go astray— that can be fixed— but it’s another for people running a company to adopt guidelines that affirmatively authorize grooming,” Skrmetti said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti” by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
