NY Gov. Kathy Hochul signs bill regulating AI chatbot ‘friends’ that endanger children

NEW YORK — New York is telling the artificial intelligence industry: Chatbots are not our children’s friends. On Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill that requires companies to block some AI chatbot features for minors, including conversations where the agent simulates a real human being or promotes harmful behavior.

“No longer will minors have access to chatbots that pretend to be their friends and boyfriends and girlfriends,” Hochul said at a news conference in Midtown Manhattan. “And I’m not sure why we have to pass a law against something so obvious, but no longer will minors have access to chatbots that may in any way encourage thoughts of suicide.”

Under the bill, for users under 18, chatbots cannot express human emotions, foster intimate or romantic relationships, ask unprompted “emotional” questions or use a child’s personal information disclosed in prior conversations.

Per the measure, AI agents are also barred from promoting or helping with suicide, self-harm, eating disorders or drug and alcohol use, offering sexually explicit content or soliciting child sex abuse material. The law prohibits bots from encouraging children to keep secrets or otherwise isolate themselves from trusted adults in their lives, such as parents or licensed professionals.

—New York Daily News

GOP ads put Somali Minnesotans at the center of closing campaign fight

MINNEAPOLIS — Four years ago, Minnesota Republicans opened a Somali community center in Minneapolis. Scott Jensen, who was the GOP candidate for governor, called on his party to “join hands with the Somali community.”

“Our interests are the same,” he said in 2022. Now, Republican candidates and their allies are making fraud and violence involving Somali Minnesotans a central theme of their campaigns, airing ads that link the community to criminal activity and accuse Democrats of failing to confront it.

Republicans say they are simply naming a problem that Democrats have been reluctant to address. Most of the several dozen people charged in the state’s social services fraud schemes have been of East African descent, and police have sounded the alarm recently about gang violence involving young Somali men.

But the GOP campaign ads have raised questions about where scrutiny ends and demonization begins. Critics of the message, including some Republicans, say the attack line is unfairly casting suspicion on an entire immigrant community and tapping into racist stereotypes for votes.

—Star Tribune

Former CEO alleges Russian company financed Alaska project, raising risk of US sanctions violations

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A project to export liquefied natural gas directly from Alaska’s North Slope and sell it overseas faces new scrutiny after its director resigned, alleging that a Russian company secretly financed the project despite U.S. sanctions on Russia.

Polar LNG, which has denied the assertions, is separate from the much better known Alaska LNG project, the $50 billion effort President Donald Trump strongly supports and that Alaska leaders have long pursued. Alaska LNG also seeks to export North Slope natural gas, though using an 800-mile pipeline to export the gas from Southcentral Alaska.

Polar LNG officials for months have publicized their plans to import a gas-liquefaction plant to Alaska from Russia after acquiring it from Novatek, Russia’s second-largest gas producer and a privately owned company.

But they have said the roughly $9 billion project must first secure federal regulatory approval, including from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers trade sanctions.

—Anchorage Daily News

Netanyahu leads Eisenkot in race to form Israeli government

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu edged ahead of opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot in the country’s tightly fought election, though a surge in the Arab vote ensured neither has a clear path toward forming a government.

Netanyahu’s right-wing religious alliance was projected to win 53 seats in the 120-member parliament as of Wednesday afternoon, compared with a below-expected 48 for Eisenkot’s bloc. That was after almost 93% of votes had been counted. The two Israeli Arab parties almost doubled their projected number of seats to 19, making them the potential kingmakers during negotiations to secure a majority.

Netanyahu and Eisenkot both expressed confidence they would be the next leader, though it will be days before President Isaac Herzog chooses who gets the opportunity to cobble together a new ruling coalition.

Should neither succeed, another election could take place in several months. Israeli assets slid across the board amid the election uncertainty.

—Bloomberg News