My name is Zach Whiting, policy director and Senior Fellow for Better Tech for Tomorrow, an initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. I am testifying in support of SB 417. The Foundation is grateful for your leadership on keeping kids safe online. SB 417 is an important first step, and we are encouraged to see several other bills filed this session that we hope your committee will expeditiously take up.
Technology
Being in the Increasingly Artificial World
It’s everywhere. Even my family has begun to depend on it: “Mom, have you seen the doctor to get your wrist checked out?” I ask. “No, I asked Chat instead,” she says. You see it appear in texts; the long, meandering, just-so perfectly casual yet precisely to the point prose that has never passed the...
August 12, 2026