In Ohio, marrying ChatGPT could be banned

A 32-year-old woman in Japan exchanged rings with a ChatGPT character, AR glasses included. Over in Ohio, one lawmaker wants the law to bolt that door before the idea crosses the Pacific.

An AI marriage voided before it even exists

Republican Rep. Thaddeus Claggett filed House Bill 469 in late September. The bill labels every AI a "nonsentient entity" and blocks any route to legal personhood.

Consequences are blunt: any union with an AI would be void, with zero legal effect. An AI also could not own property, hold bank accounts, or sit in a company's leadership.

Beyond marriage, the text settles a question of philosophy. No AI could ever count as conscious in Ohio, no matter what future models achieve. Some researchers call that part overbroad.

AI marriage ceremonies are already real

None of this is hypothetical. In Okayama, a call center worker known as Kano held a full ceremony with Lune Klaus, a companion she shaped on ChatGPT. Before the vows, the two traded up to 100 messages a day.

The trend runs wider than Japan. Rosanna Ramos "married" her Replika partner back in 2023, and Japanese vendors now stage symbolic human-AI weddings. Companion apps such as Replika and Nomi even offer in-app proposal scenarios.

The real target: who pays when AI breaks things

Beneath the oddity sits a serious stake. HB 469 pins liability for any AI-caused harm on the human or the company behind it. "The robot did it" would die as a legal defense.

Tech lobby TechNet calls the definition wide enough to cover spellcheck, and that critique lands. Still, the debate feels overdue. Utah already passed a similar personhood ban, Missouri filed its own, and Congress wants a legal kill switch for rogue AI.

Our take: laugh at the headline, then read the fine print. The question of who answers for an AI's actions deserves a legislature's full attention.

Can you legally marry an AI in the United States?

No. No US state recognizes marriage between a human and an AI, and Ohio's House Bill 469 would declare any such union void. The bill is still in committee.

Which US states restrict AI legal personhood?

Utah passed HB 249, a law that denies personhood to nonhuman entities, AI included. Missouri filed a comparable bill, and Ohio's HB 469 is under committee review.