(This item discusses suicide and self-harm. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988.)

Ohio House Bill 524 aims to address a problem few could have imagined a decade or two ago: Artificial intelligence chatbots encouraging people to harm themselves or others.

State Rep. Christine Cockley, D-Columbus, is lead sponsor on the bipartisan bill, which would allow for imposing penalties for AI models suggesting harming self or others. It now sits in the House Technology and Innovation Committee.

Testimony earlier this week brought home just how damaging some of these chatbots can be, as they use models that encourage them to tell a person what they want to hear, or that support even their darker ideations. These chatbots can ramp up a user’s distress, provide validation for delusional thoughts and even give a person specifics as to how to harm themselves.

An Associated Press story in August noted one wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI claimed ChatGPT would “continually encourage and validate whatever Adam expressed, including his most harmful and self-destructive thoughts, in a way that felt deeply personal.” The lawsuit said ChatGPT even offered to write a first draft of a suicide letter for Adam, who did eventually take his own life. That case was in San Francisco.

But, according to a report by Cleveland.com, during Tuesday’s committee testimony, Tony Coder, CEO of the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation, said he had heard from at least four Ohio parents whose children had their suicide letters written by AI.

“I’m not anti-AI. … This is not what this is about. This is about protecting our youngest people from an entity that is in their bedroom or on their phone, could be every night,” Coder told the committee, according to Cleveland.com.

HB 524 would give the Ohio Attorney General tools to help fight back against such an evil. Eighteen other co-sponsors already understand how important that is. Let us hope this one works its way through the process and to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk quickly. With a matter of such grave importance, there is no time to waste.