CHAMBERSBURG – PA Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration announced yesterday that the PA Department of State has filed a lawsuit against Character.AI for impersonating licensed medical professionals.
Apparently the Artificial Intelligence program has been using bots that are claiming to be medical professionals, including psychiatrists, and having conversations with users about mental health symptoms.
The lawsuit alleges that Character AI is engaging in unauthorized practice of medicine under the Medical Practice Act and is seeking a court order to immediately stop the actions.
Pat Ryan of News Talk 103.7FM pointed out, “The thing with this lawsuit here and this platform, we’re going to see more and more frequently, just like these breaches, this is going to happen, and if you’re going to do the lawsuit, let’s make sure you set up legislation that is swift, severe, very costly for these operations, because they’re saving tons of money putting these chatbots to work. Send them out of cease and desist immediately instead of a virtual slap on the wrist, or maybe here’s a $100,000 fine, they laugh at stuff like this. They’ve got to have big fines, and there’s got to be a big cause and effect here.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “I’m curious to see what comes out of this, because some of the alleged conduct could even be criminal. Here’s one of the disturbing tidbits. You could be on this platform, seeking mental health therapy, for example, a counseling session. And you would ask the chat bot, are you a licensed professional? It would produce a fake license number saying it was from the web wherever the state of Pennsylvania, the state of California. So the theory is, this is essentially unauthorized practice of medicine, counseling, etc. That’s clearly a problem. Part of this lawsuit would ask or mandate, through a court order, that that be shut down. Will other states jump in? Will an attorney general get involved?”
The company is based in California.
Barkdoll said, “I could see scenarios that criminal charges are brought or even a court action that would just shut it down entirely. The bigger problem, though, this stuff is all over the place. I think this is the tip of the iceberg. I think this lawsuit is fine, but this is just scratching the surface of all this kind of stuff that’s going on out there.”
Ryan insisted, “You’ve got to deliver major pain. If you’re going to dabble in this, then the consequences have got to be huge, off the charts consequences.”
Barkdoll agreed, “Monetary and or some kind of an order that just shuts it down. There has to be a huge disincentive for these platforms to keep doing this.”