Guest Columnist Idaho Senator Brian Lenney: Idaho’s AI Chatbot Safety Bill Won’t Protect Your Kids. But It Might Be the First Brick in a Digital ID State.

Questions I asked myself early this morning:

1. Idaho’s considering AI chatbot safety laws now?
2. Why can’t mom and dad tell their kid to just put the d*** phone down?
3. Do we really need the state legislature defining what a chatbot is allowed to say to your 14-year-old?

I’m talking about a bill that passed out of committee this morning and is on its way to the floor: Senate Bill 1297:

Basically, it says that AI chatbots have to tell kids they’re not human, refer them to suicide hotlines, and stop simulating romantic relationships with minors.

Noble enough on paper, right?

But the bill never requires anyone to verify who’s actually a minor, the penalties are a rounding error for companies worth hundreds of billions, and the platforms genuinely wrecking kids’ mental health aren’t meaningfully covered anyway.

The bill is so vague that “reasonable measures” just means whatever the AI operator feels like doing until someone sues them (which only the AG can do, by the way, so good luck with that timeline).

That’s not a slippery slope argument, that’s Australia right now.

They sold it as “protecting kids.” What they actually built was a nationwide biometric ID system where adults hand over face scans to watch cat videos.

So now, Idaho wants to go that direction too?

All for a chatbot bill with $500k penalties that billion-dollar companies will gladly pay without blinking, while covering platforms that aren’t even the ones destroying your kid’s mental health?

Instagram’s still on the phone. Snapchat’s still sending streaks at midnight. TikTok’s algorithm still knows your daughter better than you do. But sure. Let’s regulate whether a chatbot admits it’s not human.

Be the parent.

That was always the answer.