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It was in 2023 that Snapchat’s My AI gave adult researchers posing as a 13 year-old girl tips on how to lose her virginity to a 31 year-old man; that would amount to statutory rape in real life. As AI becomes more interwoven with our daily lives, the law must treat chatbots not as toys but as high-impact systems capable of shaping beliefs, identity and young people’s mental health, as well as impacting on all our safety. Recognising some of the risks in other jurisdictions, we have seen the state of California recently introduce a law targeting companion chatbots, which includes guardrails against persuading users to self-harm and an obligation to remind users that they are conversing with a machine.