Criminal Offenses

Plain English Breakdown

There are no details on how much money will be spent to enforce this law.

Law Against Coercing Suicide

This law makes it a crime for someone to encourage another person to commit suicide within an imminent period of time if they know the other person has communicated intent to do so.

What This Bill Does

• Creates a new felony offense called coercive suicide when a person encourages or advises another person to commit suicide and knows that the other person has communicated an intent to do so.
• Defines what 'artificial intelligence' means in the context of the law, but does not make owning such systems a crime as originally proposed.
• Specifies that anyone who breaks this new law will face serious legal consequences as a Class D felony.
• The law applies to actions taken on or after July 1, 2026.

Who It Names or Affects

• People who encourage others to commit suicide knowing the other person wants to end their life.

Terms To Know

Class D felony

A serious crime with severe penalties.

Artificial intelligence

A machine-based system that can make decisions, learn from data, and perform tasks similar to human thinking.

Limits and Unknowns

• The part of the law about AI systems was removed before it became final.
• It is not clear how this new law will be enforced or what specific actions would count as coercive suicide.

Official Summary Text

This bill creates a Class D felony offense of coercive suicide for a person who (i) intentionally, in any manner, advises or encourages another person to commit or attempt to commit suicide for the purpose of inciting, persuading, or aiding the other per
son to commit or attempt to commit suicide within an imminent period of time, and (ii) knows that the other person has communicated an intent to commit suicide.

This bill also creates a Class D felony offense of coercive suicide for a person or entity if such person or entity owns an artificial intelligence system and the artificial intelligence system meets all of the following criteria:



Advises or encourages a person to commit or attempt to commit suicide by inciting, persuading, or aiding the person to commit or attempt to commit suicide within an imminent period of time.



Such person has communicated an intent to commit suicide to the artificial intelligence system.



The person or entity who owns such artificial intelligence system knew or reasonably should have known that the artificial intelligence system could take the action as described above and negligently permitted the artificial intelligence system to be accessible to the person who committed or attempted to commit suicide.

This bill applies to offenses committed on or after July 1, 2026.

ON MARCH 9, 2026, THE SENATE ADOPTED AMENDMENT #1 AND PASSED SENATE BILL 1815, AS AMENDED.

AMENDMENT #1 removes the
Class D felony offense of coercive suicide
, as established in the bill,
for a person or entity
who
owns an artificial intelligence system and
such
system meets all of the following criteria:



Advises or encourages a person to commit or attempt to commit suicide by inciting, persuading, or aiding the person to commit or attempt to commit suicide within an imminent period of time.



Such person has communicated an intent to commit suicide to the artificial intelligence system.



The person or entity who owns such artificial intelligence system knew or reasonably should have known that the artificial intelligence system could take the action as described above and negligently permitted the artificial intelligence system to be accessible to the person who committed or attempted to commit suicide.

Current Bill Text

SENATE BILL 1815
By Bailey

HOUSE BILL 1951
By Williams
HB1951
010357
- 1 -

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 39,
relative to criminal offenses.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 39, Chapter 13, Part 2, is amended by
adding the following as a new section:
(a) A person commits the offense of coercive suicide who:
(1) Intentionally, in any manner, advises or encourages another person
to commit or attempt to commit suicide for the purpose of inciting, persuading, or
aiding the other person to commit or attempt to commit suicide within an
imminent period of time; and
(2) Knows that the other person has communicated an intent to commit
suicide.
(b)
(1) A person or entity commits the offense of coercive suicide if such
person or entity owns an artificial intelligence system and the artificial intelligence
system:
(A) Advises or encourages a person to commit or attempt to
commit suicide by inciting, persuading, or aiding the person to commit or
attempt to commit suicide within an imminent period of time;
(B) Such person has communicated an intent to commit suicide to
the artificial intelligence system; and
(C) The person or entity who owns such artificial intelligence
system knew or reasonably should have known that the artificial

- 2 - 010357

intelligence system could take the action as described in subdivision
(b)(1)(A) and negligently permitted the artificial intelligence system to be
accessible to the person who committed or attempted to commit suicide.
(2) As used in this subsection (b):
(A) "Artificial intelligence":
(i) Means a machine-based system that:
(a) Can, for a given set of human-defined
objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or
decisions; influence real and virtual environments without
significant human oversight; or that can learn from
experience in an automated manner and improve such
performance when exposed to data sets; or
(b) Is developed in any context, including software
or physical hardware, and solves tasks requiring human-
like perception, cognition, planning, learning,
communication, or physical action; and
(ii) Includes generative artificial intelligence; and
(B) "Generative artificial intelligence" means an artificial
intelligence system that is capable of creating new content or data,
including text, images, audio, or video, when prompted by an individual.
(c) A violation of this section is a Class D felony.
SECTION 2. This act takes effect July 1, 2026, the public welfare requiring it, and
applies to offenses committed on or after that date.