When an AI agent gives dangerous advice, invents defamatory falsehoods (hallucinations), or steers a vulnerable user toward harm, who is responsible for the damage? Illinois HB5044: Chatbot Provider Liability Act is now confronting the AI regulation question, and Curcio & Casciato is part of the AI chatbot legal liability conversation.
Attorney RJ Curcio testified before the Illinois House Judiciary and Consumer Protection Committees on Illinois HB5044, advocating for a straightforward principle: individuals harmed by defective AI tools must have the same avenues for recovery and legal protections that already exist for any other product defect.
What Illinois HB5044/Chatbot Provider Liability Act Would Do
Also known as the Chatbot Provider Liability Act, HB5044 is proposed legislation that would treat AI chatbots as products for the purposes of determining liability under existing laws and standards for strict liability that Illinois applies to any other product liability case, whether it’s a brake pad, power tool, medical device, or drug defect in Illinois.
Under the bill, an artificial intelligence company would have a legal duty to ensure its AI tool doesn’t injure the customers using it, and could be held responsible for any harm AI use causes, regardless of whether the company exercised reasonable care in the design or distribution of the chatbot.
A reasonable person harmed by a chatbot could file a civil action in state or federal court seeking actual damages, injunctive relief, and reimbursement of reasonable lawyers’ fees and costs. The bill was introduced earlier this year and remains in committee.
Why Strict Product Liability Laws Matter For Businesses Using AI
The heart of the debate is whether AI systems should be held accountable for the harm they cause. For decades, Illinois product liability law has held manufacturers and businesses strictly liable when an unreasonably dangerous product injures someone.
The argument respected Chicago personal injury attorney RJ Curcio brought to the committees is this:
Strict liability means victims harmed by product defects can seek justice without being forced to prove the company was careless. AI products should be treated no differently.
Establishing clear AI chatbot liability gives victims a real path to justice. It gives artificial intelligence developers an actual incentive to prioritize consumer safety, just like the state requires of other businesses.
As AI tools become a part of daily life, the gap between the harm they’re capable of and the remedies available to victims is the gap this legislation aims to close.
Product Liability Laws Already Tested Against Artificial Intelligence
The debate amongst private legal counsel, legal experts, and the overall legislative front in Springfield isn’t occurring in a vacuum. Courts across the country are being asked whether AI systems can be treated as product defects or whether they’ll have privileges to which other businesses aren’t privy.
Legal experts across the nation are closely watching the Character.AI case, which involves a companion AI chatbot. After a 14-year-old boy died by suicide following months of intense interaction with an AI chatbot, his mother sued the company, its founders, and Google. In May 2025, a federal judge in Florida allowed her strict product liability, negligence, and wrongful death claims to proceed, ruling that the chatbot app is a product for product liability purposes rather than a service. The court also declined to dismiss the case on First Amendment grounds, rejecting the argument that words generated by an AI chatbot are automatically protected speech.
That ruling matters because, for years, software and AI companies argued their products were really services. As services, AI systems were beyond the reach of strict product liability law. Treating AI systems as products opens the door to the same legal theories used against any other product defect. By definition, here’s how it should play out:
- Defective design: whether the company built something unreasonably dangerous, for example, by lacking age verification, safety guardrails, or protections for vulnerable users.
- Failure to warn: whether the company adequately disclosed the risks of its product before placing it in users’ hands.
- Breach of warranty and negligence: whether the product performed as promised and whether the company met its duty of reasonable care.
The companion chatbot case isn’t the only AI system facing scrutiny from legal counsel. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI in California, alleging that ChatGPT contributed to users’ deaths, and additional families in other states have brought claims against chatbot developers. Legislators in the federal government have introduced bipartisan bills to classify AI systems as covered products subject to product liability standards.
These AI liability cases are still moving through the courts, and a trial court ruling in one state doesn’t bind other states. However, despite the evolving nature of artificial intelligence, the direction of AI liability laws is unmistakable.
What HB5044 would establish by law in Illinois, courts in other states are already beginning to do case by case: apply established product liability laws to the harms that AI chatbots can cause.
The Bigger Picture: Illinois AI Law Beyond HB5044
The product liability law for AI use doesn’t stand alone. Illinois has become one of the most active states in the country on artificial intelligence, with several existing laws already on the books and a wave of new bills under consideration. Together, they show a state actively deciding where responsibility falls when artificial intelligence causes harm.
Existing Laws For AI in Illinois
- The Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources (WOPR) Act: Signed in August 2025, this first-in-the-country law bars practices from allowing AI to make therapeutic decisions or AI chatbots from independently providing mental health support. Therapy and mental health support must come from licensed care professionals. AI systems are limited to administrative and supplementary support, and violations carry fines of up to $10,000. Legislators in Illinois banned AI therapy quickly. The bill passed because of reports regarding AI “therapy” chatbots giving inaccurate and harmful advice to vulnerable users.
- The Illinois Human Rights Act AI amendment (HB3773): Effective January 1, 2026, the Illinois Human Rights Amendment Act makes it a civil rights violation for an employer to use AI that shows any discrimination towards employees or individuals applying for employment or apprenticeship on the basis of a protected class, or to use zip codes as a proxy for protected classes. Employers must also notify employees when AI systems are used in hiring, promotion, discipline, and other employment decisions. It builds on the state’s earlier Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act.
Illinois AI Bills Under Consideration
- HB4663, the Autonomous Vehicle Pilot Project Act: Would authorize self-driving vehicle pilot programs in counties including Cook, and set the rules for operating an autonomous vehicle on public roads, including the duties that follow a crash involving a driverless vehicle. For anyone who shares Illinois roads, the central question is unavoidable: who is responsible when an autonomous vehicle causes injury or death?
- SB3502, the Artificial Intelligence Design Requirements Act, would allow individuals harmed by a defective AI system to bring product liability claims against its developer for defective design, inadequate instructions or warnings, or failure to conform to an express warranty. Like HB5044, it extends familiar consumer protections into the AI space.
- SB3384, the AI Companion Model Safety Act, focuses on protecting minors from harmful AI companion chatbots and addresses liability for the harm those bots can cause.
- SB3444, the Artificial Intelligence Safety Act: Cuts the other way. It would shield developers of frontier AI models from liability for catastrophic harms, so long as they did not act intentionally or recklessly and they publish a safety protocol. It has drawn support from parts of the AI industry and pushback from consumer public safety advocates.
- SB3312, the Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act, would require large frontier developers to adopt and publish a framework addressing catastrophic risk, transparency, and cybersecurity.
- SB3263, the Artificial Intelligence Provenance Data Act, would require AI-generated images, video, and audio to carry provenance labels so people can tell what was machine-made.
Some of these AI liability laws, like HB5044 and SB3502, would strengthen the rights of injured consumers. Others would narrow them. The outcome will matter to every Illinois resident who uses these AI tools, rides in these vehicles, or applies for work screened by an algorithm.
Illinois AI Law Is Moving Fast. Know Your Rights.
HB5044 is one of several measures shaping the future of Illinois AI law, and the ground is shifting quickly. Whether or not this specific bill becomes law, the underlying principle is clear: people injured by defective products deserve accountability and a way to be made whole.
If you or someone you love has been harmed by an AI product or chatbot, the attorneys at Curcio & Casciato are ready to help you understand your options. Call 312-321-1111 or request a free consultation.