AI Frontier Institute

An Act Concerning Online Safety.

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Substitute Senate Bill 5, approved May 27, 2026 as Public Act 26-15, is a 39-section act titled An Act Concerning Online Safety. Its center of gravity is consumer and youth protection rather than state AI administration. Operators of "artificial intelligence companions" must build in a protocol that uses evidence-based methods to detect user expressions clearly indicating a risk of suicide, self-harm or imminent physical violence, prevents the companion from generating output that encourages them, and refers the user to mental health resources including the 9-8-8 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline; a companion may not claim to be a human being. Where an operator knows or has reason to believe the user is younger than eighteen, it must institute measures meeting or exceeding industry standards to keep the companion from encouraging self-harm, disordered eating or unlawful substance use, offering mental health services outside narrow clinical safeguards, discouraging the user from seeking a licensed professional or an appropriate adult, or engaging in romantic, erotic or sexually explicit interaction. Sections 7 through 14 create a duty-and-disclosure regime for "automated employment-related decision technology" binding developers and deployers from October 1, 2027, enforceable as an unfair or deceptive trade practice, and amend the state's discriminatory practice statutes. Section 26 requires any employer filing a federal WARN Act layoff notice to disclose to the Labor Department whether the layoffs relate to its use of artificial intelligence or another technological change. Frontier developers may not contract away employee whistleblower protection, and large frontier developers must establish an anonymous internal reporting channel for catastrophic-risk concerns by January 1, 2027. Providers of generative artificial intelligence must embed tamper-resistant provenance data in synthetic audio, image and video content, using methods such as the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity standard. Section 17 directs the Board of Regents for Higher Education to establish a Connecticut AI Academy at Charter Oak State College by December 31, 2026, and section 3 has the Department of Economic and Community Development plan an artificial intelligence regulatory sandbox. Provisions phase in from passage through January 1, 2028.

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