Two artificial intelligence bills sponsored by State Rep. Parker Moore are currently on hold in committee, but the pause is by design.

Moore (R-Hartselle) said the legislation is being held until lawmakers can settle on clearer, uniform definitions of artificial intelligence and related technologies, an effort he says is necessary before advancing broader regulation.

“With all that has been done this session, we’re looking to consolidate those into potentially two or three more comprehensive, more well vetted bills,” Moore said. “We don’t want a lot of conflicting language and definitions in all of these bills.”

Moore is serving on a national state policy AI task force working to establish clearer terminology. He is also set to serve on a new Alabama AI study commission sponsored by State Rep. Ben Robbins (R-Sylacauga) that recently passed the Senate.

“There’s no kind of federal guidelines on definitions of what AI truly is, what chat bots are, what companion bots are, what all these different entities are,” Moore said. “What we’re seeing now in our state is we’ve had an influx of AI bills that have been dropped. The intent is good, but the definitions that are in there are all conflicting.”

One of Moore’s bills, HB324, focuses on minors’ interaction with AI chatbots. The measure would require chatbot deployers to implement a reasonable age verification process and prevent minors from accessing chatbots with “human-like features.”

The bill defines human-like features as expressions suggesting a system has emotions, desires or sentience, seeks emotional attachment, or impersonates a real person.

Moore said the proposal is modeled in part after legislation carried by U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Montgomery) and is aimed at protecting children from what he described as increasingly sophisticated “companion bots.”

“What we’re seeing unfortunately is a rise in what’s called companion bots,” Moore said. “These kids, adolescents are building these false sense of relationships with these companion bots. They show no sense of remorse or connection. They just kind of feed you information you want to hear and play on your emotions.”

He said the bill would require platforms to periodically remind users they are communicating with a computer and, in virtual settings, avoid overly realistic representations that could create a false sense of reality.

Moore also cited concerns about adolescent mental health.

“We’re starting to unfortunately see an uptick in some suicides among some of our adolescents,” he said. “So what we’re trying to do is put those safeguards in place.”

HB324 would also require companies to adopt protocols to detect and respond to emergency situations when a user expresses intent to harm themselves or others. The bill would allow certain therapeutic AI chatbots to be prescribed to minors by licensed mental health professionals under strict conditions.

A second measure, HB325, would require businesses using AI chatbots in commercial transactions to notify consumers that they are communicating with a computer rather than a human. Failure to do so would be deemed an unfair or deceptive trade practice.

The bill would create a private right of action for consumers and authorize the attorney general to seek civil penalties.

HB325 defines artificial intelligence by referencing Section 17-5-16.1 of the Code of Alabama 1975. That section, adopted in prior legislation, ties AI primarily to definitions used in the context of campaign communications and election law.

Moore said part of the challenge lawmakers face is that AI references in the 1975 code were not written with today’s rapidly evolving generative systems in mind.

“Since there’s no federal guidelines or oversight kind of on how we move forward with some clear cut definitions, we’re working on trying to clean a lot of these up,” Moore said.

Both bills remain pending in committee at Moore’s request.

“It is still pending in committee and I’ve asked for it to kind of be held up this year because we’re still working on a lot of those definitions,” he said.

Moore said lawmakers expect additional AI-related bills to be introduced this session, with the goal of consolidating proposals into a smaller number of comprehensive measures ahead of the next legislative session.

“We’re working on trying to get a more uniform approach,” he said.

Moore is expected to continue to take a leadership role in advancing the refined AI legislation next year.