"If they cannot afford a therapist, is it better that they talk to a low-cost chatbot, or no one at all?" I believe that state legislatures have conclusively answered this in the case of florists, undertakers, barbers, and many other industries they have converted into guilds. I fear that mental health is merely a case with particularly prominence, particularly because of cases that have little to do with an intention to use a chatbot for mental health care (https://www.transformernews.ai/p/ai-psychosis-stories-roundup was a roundup I found decent), and we'll see a desperate attempt to protect every job with an effective enough lobbyist rather than making sensible or thoughtful policy.
Perhaps I am out of the loop here... mind you. What would be your considerations as good policies at the state level that can be intertwined with the federal level policies? The one in terms of safety and considerations of supporting the population, not just the company's pocket. The ones without overreaching...I mean, AI is moving so fast that we should be a guardrail without crashing into its growth.
No mention of SB-813? I have assumed as of late that the Bill got axed, but I have no way to back this up at the moment.
'I worry that audit requirements will end up making these safety and security protocols less substantive over time, given how auditing outside of hard-ground-truth fields like accounting tends to converge to a simplistic box-checking exercise.'
Very useful review of those bills, thank you!
For anyone interested, I analyzed the 1,000+ bills claim around the time of the moratorium debate and likewise concluded there were a few dozen that matter https://open.substack.com/pub/stevenadler/p/mythbusting-the-supposed-1000-ai?r=4qacg
Good to have you back!
"If they cannot afford a therapist, is it better that they talk to a low-cost chatbot, or no one at all?" I believe that state legislatures have conclusively answered this in the case of florists, undertakers, barbers, and many other industries they have converted into guilds. I fear that mental health is merely a case with particularly prominence, particularly because of cases that have little to do with an intention to use a chatbot for mental health care (https://www.transformernews.ai/p/ai-psychosis-stories-roundup was a roundup I found decent), and we'll see a desperate attempt to protect every job with an effective enough lobbyist rather than making sensible or thoughtful policy.
Thanks Dean. Glad to see you writing about State policy again.
He's back 😎
Glad to have you back to talking about the states!
Perhaps I am out of the loop here... mind you. What would be your considerations as good policies at the state level that can be intertwined with the federal level policies? The one in terms of safety and considerations of supporting the population, not just the company's pocket. The ones without overreaching...I mean, AI is moving so fast that we should be a guardrail without crashing into its growth.
No mention of SB-813? I have assumed as of late that the Bill got axed, but I have no way to back this up at the moment.
'I worry that audit requirements will end up making these safety and security protocols less substantive over time, given how auditing outside of hard-ground-truth fields like accounting tends to converge to a simplistic box-checking exercise.'
Have you read: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.01643? Seems relevant to your point.