Senate Democrats introduce bills to regulate artificial intelligence

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (Capitol News Illinois) – With just two weeks left in the spring legislative session, Illinois Senate Democrats introduced an eight-bill package aimed at regulating some uses of artificial intelligence after a lack of federal action on the issue.

Illinois lawmakers modeled their bills that address consumer protection, developer transparency and educational usage after legislation in California and New York to create a “de facto national standard,” Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, told Capitol News Illinois.

In committee hearings, industry advocates voiced concerns about state-led regulations creating a “patchwork environment” that is difficult to do business in and encouraged lawmakers to wait for federal action. But no such movement has been made in Congress, and President Donald Trump signed an executive order in December discouraging states from “excessive” regulation.

“From our observation, not much is happening at all in Washington, so we felt it was necessary for us to act,” Cunningham said. “We also were motivated by the idea that two other big states have passed pretty meaningful AI regulation, California and New York, and together, we believe that our three states will cover about 40% of the AI market in the United States.”

Led by Cunningham, the senators said in a Wednesday news conference that they’re aiming to pass their bills before the chambers adjourn on May 31 — and they’re undaunted by threats from the federal government.

Some of the bills include specific provisions about deferring to federal actions, if any come to fruition, and states are subject to federal law. But despite Trump’s threats, potentially including withholding broadband funding, Cunningham said lawmakers are dedicated to regulating AI.

“There are all sorts of threats happening right now about the federal government cracking down on states doing things that the Trump administration doesn’t like,” Cunningham said. “We’re going to do the right thing regardless of those threats, and that’s what we’re trying to do with this package.”

The bills are each aimed at specific, ongoing issues relevant to AI, and senators are looking to protect their constituents in those areas, Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, said.

Transparency

Senate Bill 315 from Sen. Mary Edly-Allen, D-Libertyville, aims to require more transparency from large developers like OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT.

“Illinois needs to create a road map for responsible innovation to prevent catastrophic risks,” Edly-Allen said, comparing the technology to the “Wild Wild West.”

“This is not about stopping innovation, but rather about balancing the great promise of AI with its potential harms,” she continued.

The bill would require large developers — those with annual gross revenues greater than $500 million — to create, follow and publish a framework detailing how the company approaches incorporating industry standards, assesses the model’s capabilities and potential for catastrophic risk, and identifies and responds to safety incidents. It would also require developers to review this framework annually and advertise any significant modifications.

The bill defines catastrophic risk as a predictable and substantial risk that, by helping a person to create or release a weapon or conduct an attack, a model will contribute to the death or serious injury of more than 50 people or more than $1 billion in damages.

Further, developers would be required to publish a transparency report before launching a new or significantly modified model and employ a third party to conduct annual audits, although it includes protections for trade secrets and national security.

Developers would also be prohibited from making false or misleading statements about its framework or potential for catastrophic risk, from retaliating against employees for whistleblowing, and subject to civil penalties for violations.

A representative from Anthropic, the Claude model developer, testified in support of the bill, which passed unanimously out of committee on Wednesday.

Chatbots

Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, is sponsoring Senate Bill 316 to ensure that AI chatbots provide resources to struggling teenagers after rising rates of suicide and self-harm linked to chatbot use.

“AI isn’t necessarily trained in crisis response, especially as it relates to mental health,” Ellman said. “Due to a lack of proper intervention, the teenager can commit self-harm, and in some cases, dies by suicide after confiding with an artificial intelligence chatbot. That is unacceptable.”

The bill would require operators of AI chatbots designed for social or emotional interaction — exempting models like customer service chatbots — to develop and maintain protocols around expressions of suicidal ideation and self-harm, including preventing the model from encouraging such behavior. When the chatbot recognizes such expressions, it would need to direct users to resources like crisis hotlines.

The bill would also require operators to disclose to users that they are communicating with an automated system at the beginning of interactions and at least every three hours during ongoing conversations, and to prevent chatbots directed toward minors from generating sexually explicit material or encouraging sexually explicit conduct.

Senate Bill 317 from Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, would require companies using customer service chatbots to disclose to consumers that they are speaking with an automated system.

“Automatic systems lack the empathy and human understandings that are essential,” Ventura said. “People deserve to know that they’re communicating with a human or an AI system from the very beginning of interaction to increase transparency and accountability.”

The attorney general would have enforcement authority, unless a person experienced damages because of a violation, in which case they could bring a civil suit against the company.

Both bills passed unanimously out of committee on Wednesday.

Consumer protection

Sen. Steve Stadelman, D-Caledonia, is sponsoring Senate Bill 318 to prevent bots from buying and reselling event tickets.

“For too long, ticket buying has felt stacked against everyday fans who are forced to use their hard-earned money to pay exorbitant prices, in large part because so-called bots are scooping them up and reselling them for outrageous prices,” Stadelman said.

The bill would prohibit users from using bots, multiple accounts or email addresses from making mass purchases of event tickets. It would also prohibit resellers from falsely representing affiliation with an artist, team, venue or organizer. Venues and ticket issuers would also have to disclose how many tickets are withheld when other tickets are up for sale.

The bill passed unanimously out of committee on Wednesday.

Senate Bill 340 from Sen. Laura Murphy, D-Des Plaines, would require tech companies to give consumers the ability to opt out of data collection for personalized ads or for sale to third parties. It would also prohibit the sale of personal data to influence life-changing decisions like loan approvals, job screening or insurance rates.

“Illinois needs to protect our consumers’ personal data from being collected by these companies,” Murphy said.

The bill is modeled after a 2025 Minnesota law restricting the use and sale of consumers’ data. While the bill does not directly reference AI, the technology is often used to analyze consumer data.

Sen. Graciela Guzmán, D-Chicago, is sponsoring Senate Bill 343 to prohibit landlords from using AI-driven platforms to collude on rental prices.

“Housing is a human need. It should not be manipulated by algorithms built to maximize corporate profits at the expense of our communities,” Guzmán said.

The bill would ban landlords from indirectly coordinating prices for residential rental units through third-party services. A representative from Illinois REALTORS testified against the bill, saying the organization is concerned that the bill puts liability on landlords as the end user rather than the software.

Murphy’s and Guzman’s bills passed out of committee along partisan lines on Wednesday.

Education

Senate Bill 415 from Sen. Karina Villa, D-Chicago, would restrict schools from using facial recognition software on school cameras.

“No child should be subjected to invasive surveillance or have risk of their sensitive personal data collected and misused,” Villa said. “When it comes to protecting children’s biometric information, Illinois must be steadfast in securing student privacy and preventing discrimination.”

Villa introduced the bill after students in her district were concerned about the safety of their biometric data being captured, she said. But Republicans on the committee expressed concern that the bill would limit schools’ ability to keep their students safe, although they ultimately voted to pass it out of committee.

“Public policy is balancing priorities, and I would place a greater priority on the safety of the students in school, school security, over an individual visit,” Sen. John Curran, R-Downers Grove, said. “Maybe its technology is not completely developed and precise right now, but it’s going to continue to get better.”

Villa said she plans to bring an amendment to clarify how schools should handle existing contracts and data, and who — between students, teachers and visitors — the bill applies to.

Sen. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, is sponsoring Senate Bill 416 to regulate the use of AI in the classroom.

The bill would prohibit teachers from using AI to assign grades and would direct school boards to adopt a policy requiring the boards to approve any use of AI in relation to students or student work by the 2026-27 school year.

“Education should be an interactive collaboration with human beings as we try to develop the young minds of our young students,” Martwick said. “It should not be AI grading based off of implicit biases that are built into the systems.”

Martwick’s bill passed out of committee unanimously on Wednesday.

Moving forward

The package comes a month after a Senate subcommittee held nearly 11 hours of subject matter hearings over several days on dozens of similar, bipartisan AI regulatory bills. The package is, in part, a product of those hearings, Cunningham said.

All but two of the bills in this package passed out of committee unanimously, signaling bipartisan support for the regulations. How far that goes is yet to be seen, with some technical amendments expected before the bills are called for a vote on the floor.

“I think there are definitely things that both parties agree on, we see the potential of AI, we also see some of the potential harm, and there is a bipartisan belief in that,” Cunningham said.

The House and Senate are in alignment with their goals on AI regulation, Cunningham said, after chamber leadership met to develop a plan earlier this week.

“I’m confident at the end of the day, we’ll get bills out of both chambers that attack the problems we want to take care of,” Cunningham said.

And it’s not the be-all-end-all, Edly-Allen said: “This is not one and done. We’re going to have to continue to come back and retool, but at this point, our most important job is to protect our constituency, and that’s what all these pieces of legislation do.”

(Reporting by Jenna Schweikert and UIS Public Affairs Reporting (PAR), Capitol News Illinois)

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

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