![\"Default](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785094990_204_author_avatar.png\"){kind=avatar}
ANKENY, Iowa \u2014<\/p>\nSen. Ted Cruz calls for regulating kids\u2019 use of AI chatbots at Hinson campaign event<\/p>\n
ANKENY, Iowa \u2014<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said Saturday Congress needs to find a balance between regulating artificial intelligence chatbots and incentivizing the growth of the country\u2019s AI industry as he joined U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson at a roundtable in Ankeny.<\/p>\n
Hinson aims to join Cruz in the Senate through her 2026 campaign to fill the seat currently held by U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, and is running against state Rep. Josh Turek, D-Council Bluffs, in the 2026 general election. At Faith Baptist Bible College Saturday, she and the Cruz spoke with Iowa parents about what lawmakers in Washington D.C. can do to help better protect children in online spaces.<\/p>\n
Cruz pointed to measures already passed by the U.S. Senate to address these concerns \u2014 like the \u201cTAKE IT DOWN Act<\/a>,\u201d led by him and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, to criminalize both real and \u201cdeepfake\u201d revenge pornography. He also pointed to the Kids Off Social Media Act<\/a>, known as KOSMA, which sets the minimum age for social media platforms to 13, requires schools receiving federal funds to block social media on campus and bans companies from algorithmic boosting of content for users under age 17.<\/p>\n Cruz said there was a \u201cgenerational divide\u201d in the U.S. Senate on these issues \u2014 a majority of the sponsors of KOSMA, he said, were senators in their 40s and 50s, while older senators were not as involved.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s one of the many reasons why why I\u2019m excited for Ashley to come join us, because I think bringing the perspective of a mom dealing with these challenges every day when you go home at night,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s real, and we need that kind of urgency to understand why we need to be doing what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n Members of the roundtable also brought up concerns about children interacting with predators or other bad actors on gaming platforms. Hinson said her sons play games like Roblox, which involve interaction with others online, and that could be an area where the government could set age restrictions or put other protections in place for children.<\/p>\n \u201cYou think about all the different places where we may need to be looking at these protections \u2014 it\u2019s not just social media; it\u2019s any place there may be a social interaction, and technology is that intersection,\u201d Hinson said. \u201cSo whether it\u2019s a big tech company or a gaming company, we may need to have conversations about what age limits are appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n The federal government has taken some steps to address concerns about social media, but members of the roundtable said there\u2019s a new major concern about regulating digital spaces for minors: the use of artificial intelligence. Cruz said he\u2019s working on a bill that he is calling \u201cchatbot KOSMA\u201d that he said would give parents control over whether their children interact with chatbots, like ChatGPT or Claude, and allow parents to see their children\u2019s conversations.<\/p>\n Hinson said there were some chatbot protections included in the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Initiative<\/a> passed by the House that regulate when an AI bot is \u201cmasquerading as a professional\u201d or counseling a minor on issues like suicidal ideation or medical advice. But she said there was more work to be done.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to make sure that the chatbots are also in their own lane, right?\u201d Hinson said. \u201cBecause I think that\u2019s the new frontier dealing with AI and the challenge that we are frankly struggling to keep up with on the policy side, because it\u2019s moved so fast and advanced so quickly. Trying to figure out how we rein that in so that we\u2019re not limiting everything, but we make sure we protect our kids from nefarious actors.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the politicians said they want to put guardrails on AI, Cruz said it was also important to keep in mind that the U.S. was competing with China to become the \u201cdominant standard\u201d in the field \u2014 a competition he said it was vital for the U.S. to win.<\/p>\n \u201cI very much want America to win that race, both because trillions of dollars of investment and millions of jobs are going to flow to whoever wins that race \u2014 and so I want them to come to America and not go to China \u2014 but equally important, whichever country wins that race, the values of that country are going to suffuse AI,\u201d Cruz said. \u201cSo if China wins, the values of the Chinese Communist Party will suffuse AI. You will have surveillance and espionage and propaganda and control throughout AI. I very much want American values of free speech and individual liberty and free markets and individual rights, those values to suffuse AI.\u201d<\/p>\n State Rep. Ryan Weldon, R-Ankeny, who joined the panel, said regulating chatbots has been a serious discussion in the Iowa Legislature as well. When state lawmakers were considering measures to restrict minors\u2019 access to interact with chatbots \u2014 primarily large language models \u2014 concerns came from the private sector about these measures inadvertently impacting businesses that use \u201cclosed loop\u201d AI chatbots for customer service or other specific purposes.<\/p>\n Weldon also said Congress should consider ways to encourage businesses to develop AI and other technologies that fall in line with their safety standards.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talk a lot about restrictions and I think those are good conversations,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the private sector, we talk a lot about, \u2018you get what you incentivize.\u2019 And so I just wonder if there\u2019s some some ways that we can incentivize our innovative companies to create products and services that will be safe for all of us to use without without these scary things. I\u2019m a big believer in the free market and getting government out of the way so that people can do what they do, but just on the incentives, I wonder if there\u2019s maybe some options.\u201d<\/p>\n Iowa Capital Dispatch<\/a> is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sen. Ted Cruz calls for regulating kids\u2019 use of AI chatbots at Hinson campaign event ANKENY, Iowa \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,29220,229,60414,25,60412,3433,580,2876,387,182,32,584,2251,60417,60420,477,1352,60415,60416,60413,60418,60421,1400,23757,60422,60419,1109,17068,7460,20452,1351,35817,17509],"class_list":["post-119436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-ai-bot","tag-ai-chatbots","tag-ankeny","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-ashley-hinson","tag-chatbot","tag-chatgpt","tag-child","tag-china","tag-claude","tag-concern","tag-conversation","tag-country","tag-faith-baptist-bible-college","tag-hinson","tag-iowa","tag-iowa-legislature","tag-joni-ernst","tag-josh-turek","tag-kids-online","tag-kosma","tag-measure","tag-minor","tag-roblox","tag-roundtable","tag-ryan-weldon","tag-social-media","tag-social-medium-platform","tag-take-it-down-act","tag-ted-cruz","tag-u-s-senate","tag-value","tag-washington-dc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}