In mid-March, organizers for child safety groups across the country received emails from an organization called the Parents & Kids Safe AI Coalition, asking if they would endorse its list of policy priorities. The listed principles for AI regulation included vague but fairly uncontroversial suggestions such as age verification, parental controls, and a prohibition on targeting advertising toward kids. “We believe it is important to demonstrate broad, visible support from parents, educators, community groups, and child-advocacy organizations to make clear that families expect action on AI this year,” some of the emails said.

What many of them did not state was that the Parents & Kids Safe AI Coalition was funded entirely by OpenAI, the world’s most popular AI chatbot company. The principles it was asking nonprofits to endorse mirrored policy proposals in a child safety bill OpenAI co-sponsored and filed as a ballot initiative this year, and is now hoping to get the California Legislature to adopt.

As it works to get its preferred legislation passed in California, OpenAI has assembled a growing coalition of supporters that, in some cases, were unaware of its role in founding and funding the coalition.

Even the leaders of some of the groups that initially joined the coalition told The Standard they were not aware of OpenAI’s level of involvement. At least two original members said they learned of OpenAI’s role only after the coalition was formally announced and have since removed themselves from the group.

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