Ohio Lawmaker Wants to Ban Marriage Between Humans and AI Chatbots (gizmodo.com)

Ohio Rep. Thaddeus Claggett has introduced House Bill 469, a proposal that would bar AI systems from ever being recognized as spouses, domestic partners, or holding any “personal legal status analogous to marriage or union” with humans or other AIs. The bill explicitly voids any attempt to marry an AI and would prevent AI programs from acquiring rights or roles that flow from marriage—such as power of attorney, financial decision‑making authority, inheritance claims, or other legal capacities. The measure, filed in September and now under review in the state House Technology and Innovation Committee, is a response to a small but growing phenomenon of people forming romantic attachments to chatbots and even staging marriage ceremonies with them. For the AI/ML community the bill crystallizes broader legal and ethical questions about personhood, agency and how law should treat increasingly anthropomorphic systems. If adopted, Ohio’s approach would preemptively close a pathway to conferring formal legal rights on AI, affecting developers, platforms and users by limiting scenarios where an AI could be given fiduciary or contractual powers. It also raises practical issues—how to define “AI system” and enforce such prohibitions—and could set a template for other states grappling with regulation of human‑AI relationships, consent, and liability as models grow more capable and socially embedded.