# Developers and deployers must not use AI to incite self-harm, harm to others or crime

- **Record type**: Obligation
- **Instrument**: Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act (HB 149, 89th Legislature)
- **Jurisdiction**: Texas (United States)
- **Category**: prohibited_practice
- **Binding**: Yes
- **Applies from**: 2026-01-01
- **Provision**: Business and Commerce Code Section 551.052

## What the duty requires

A person may not develop or deploy an AI system in a manner that intentionally aims to incite or encourage a person to commit physical self-harm, including suicide, to harm another person, or to engage in criminal activity. The prohibition turns on the developer's or deployer's intent rather than on the system's effects, which is the pattern followed throughout the Act's prohibited-use provisions.

## What an organisation does about it

Record the intended purpose of each system at design review and add safety testing for self-harm and violence content in conversational products.

## Controls that meet this duty

- Adversarial and red-team testing for generative AI (supports): https://aipolicytracker.org/controls/genai-red-team-testing
- Prohibited and unacceptable-use screening gate (satisfies): https://aipolicytracker.org/controls/prohibited-use-screening-gate

## Parent instrument

- Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act (HB 149, 89th Legislature)
  - Record: https://aipolicytracker.org/policies/us-texas-responsible-ai-governance-act-traiga
  - Context file: https://aipolicytracker.org/policies/us-texas-responsible-ai-governance-act-traiga.md

## Provenance

- **Record page**: https://aipolicytracker.org/obligations/us-texas-responsible-ai-governance-act-traiga-manipulation-prohibition
- **Official source**: https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB149
- **Provision**: Business and Commerce Code Section 551.052
- **Review status**: pending review
- **Confidence**: high
- **Facts last confirmed**: never confirmed against the official source
- **Retrieved**: 2026-09-24
- **Licence**: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

> This record is a structured summary with a link to the official text. It is not legal advice. Open the official source before relying on any date or duty. How current each record type must be is published at https://aipolicytracker.org/verification; what a record must carry at all is published at https://aipolicytracker.org/coverage.