Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has revealed plans from the government to introduce legislation regulating AI chatbots and potentially social media as part of its pledge to protect children from online harms.
Starmer said the government will be “tightening up” existing online safety legislation to ensure popular chatbots were covered by it. The announcement follows the UK government’s action against X-based chatbot Grok.
As well as opening several regulatory-based investigations into the Elon Musk-owned chatbot due to its use in the generation of illegal explicit images, including those depicting minors, the government demanded X remove the ability to use Grok to edit images in this way, prompting a temporary ban from accessing picture editing for non-subscribers.
In a new blog post, the prime minister wrote that it is “vitally important that our rules keep up with the rapid pace of technological change. This will build on recent steps we’ve taken to ban nudification apps and criminalise the creation of intimate images without consent”.
As well as increasing scrutiny of AI chatbots, Starmer offered renewed signs that a total social media ban for under-16s could be coming, following similar decisions in Australia and Spain.
The government is currently waiting for a consultation examining the best approach to keeping young people safe from the harmful impact of social media, with the prime minister confirming that an Australia-style ban is on the cards.
He wrote that, if the evidence suggests it is necessary, the government will “implement a minimum age for social media in a matter of months to prevent kids from accessing harmful social media”.
Other possible outcomes include restricting specific functionality of social media for kids, including endless scroll algorithms and autoplay, and even restrictions being placed on children’s access to VPNs to prevent them getting around geographic age restriction.
