Chinese regulator drafts rules to protect teenagers from ‘intimate’ AI companions

China’s top internet watchdog has drafted new rules to regulate how social platforms and game developers should protect minors, including a ban on offering “virtual intimacy services” to those under 18 as artificial intelligence-powered companions gain traction.

The rules, titled “Ensuring minors’ safe and healthy use of the internet”, would ban online platforms from providing “virtual relatives or companions”, and prohibit them from offering services that “induce minors to become addicted or otherwise harm or may seriously affect their physical and mental health”.

The regulations would also ban online social networking services among strangers, except for those aged above 16 who rely on their own wages, according to the document published last Friday by the Cyberspace Administration of China.

The document requires platforms to activate minors’ mode when operating online games, social sites and offering AI services that “could affect the cognition of” users under 16.