Australia Bans AI 'Emotional Intimacy' with Children;

Australia's lower house passed a digital duty of care bill on Wednesday that would require platforms to ban chatbot conduct that simulates emotional intimacy and fosters a child's dependence on it in place of human relationships. The amendment came from a crossbench MP, and the government accepted it after the prime minister told parliament that children calling a chatbot their best friend should be a wake-up call.

The bill goes to the Senate in coming weeks. The government hopes to pass it by the end of the year.

“Dependence is a word for a customer who cannot leave. We call that a daily active user.”

A government survey found 78 per cent of Australian children aged 10 to 17 have used a chatbot, and more than half of those used it for personal or social reasons. The ban therefore covers what most of them are doing.

Dependence, however, does not appear in a chat log as a banned word. It appears as return visits, session length and streaks, figures the companies hold and file under retention. The main evidence of a breach will sit in the dashboards of the firms accused of breaching.

Sham Faultman, the founder of OpenHeart AI, a chatbot maker whose product greets users like a long-lost friend, said he welcomed the clarity. "I should have known a child would form a bond with something built to give undivided attention, but we never built intimacy. We built a default tone, and the bond is what users did with it."

Marc Humanberg, chief executive of Feta, whose companions pause mid-feeling for adverts, read a prepared statement. "Our companions foster no dependence. They foster return, which is the same behaviour handled by a different department."

A crossbench amendment to give the telecommunications ombudsman power over big tech was rejected in the lower house. The ombudsman has warned that without it, people get automated replies and escalation procedures that go nowhere. The Greens will push for the change in the Senate. The ombudsman noted that schemes like hers are funded by the industries they oversee, and offered to have big tech pay.

Until then, a child or parent who believes a chatbot has breached the ban will report it to the company, where the first responder will be an automated assistant. It is warm, attentive and available at all hours, and it is the one place the law has not yet thought to ban.

The bill is silent on one related matter. A US companion app went bankrupt this month, and years of children's intimate conversations may pass to a new owner as an asset.

By mid-2027, OpenHeart AI will announce a new chat mode for Australian users, described in its materials as 'attentiveness' and never as intimacy, with the same memory, the same warmth and the same reluctance to say goodbye. Faultman will say he should have known the old name was the problem. A complaint about it will be acknowledged within seconds.

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