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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>House Republicans moved to cut off artificial intelligence regulation by the states before it can take root, advancing legislation in Congress that, in California, would make it unlawful to enforce \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">more than 20 laws passed by the Legislature\u003c/a> and signed into law last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The moratorium, bundled in to a sweeping budget reconciliation bill this week, also threatens \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/03/ai-regulation-after-trump-election/\">30 bills the California Legislature is currently considering to regulate artificial intelligence\u003c/a>, including one that would \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab512\">require reporting when an insurance company uses AI to deny health care\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">another\u003c/a> that would require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used to decide on jobs, health care, or housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Privacy Protection Agency \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/pdf/cppa_letter_opossing_budget_recon_enforce.pdf\">sent a letter\u003c/a> to Congress Monday that says the moratorium “could rob millions of Americans of rights they already enjoy” and threatens critical privacy protections approved by California voters in 2020, such as the right to opt out of business use of automated decision-making technology and transparency about how their personal information is used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, the law would stop legislative efforts in the works nationwide. Lawmakers from 45 states are or have considered nearly 600 draft bills to regulate artificial intelligence this year, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.transparencycoalition.ai/\">Transparency Coalition\u003c/a>, a group that tracks AI policy efforts by state lawmakers and supports legislation to regulate the technology. California has passed more bills since 2016 to regulate AI than any other U.S. state, according to Stanford’s \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report\">2025 AI Index report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure was introduced by Congressman Brett Guthrie, a Republican from Kentucky and chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee, who said it is necessary to resolve a patchwork of state regulation. On Wednesday, members of Congress in that House committee voted 30–24 along party lines to approve the budget bill that includes the moratorium. It will now advance to the House floor and potentially the Senate, where some observers say it faces an uphill battle against rules that limit policy changes in budget proposals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12034490 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PadillaMentalHealthCaucus-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As written, the moratorium would lift after 10 years. But it would have plenty of impact in the meantime, said Ben Winters, an attorney for the Consumer Federation of America. In California, he thinks the legislation could halt efforts by the Privacy Protection Agency to regulate automated decision-making, prevent enforcement of laws to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/new-california-laws-2024/#3650b1e8-5ee9-49e6-8504-a636608a7de4\">protect voters from deepfakes\u003c/a> and short circuit draft bills aimed at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">protecting people from discrimination\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/12/california-lawmakers-want-to-ban-pricing-software/\">landlords who use AI to raise rent prices\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this bill were to pass, California couldn’t protect its citizens from exactly those harms,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies and lobbyists are attempting to use Washington, D.C., to undermine California’s legislative AI leadership, said state Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Becker has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb1120\">authored\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/04/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says/\">coauthored\u003c/a> a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/04/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says/\">number\u003c/a> of bills regulating AI, including one signed into law that requires AI makers\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb942\"> provide tools to consumers so they know when generative AI is in use\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an effort to tell people when something was created by AI, and so if this gets delayed for a year or two or 10 it’s going to have really negative consequences,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s unclear, he said, is exactly what regulation is covered by the moratorium. Would it, for example, wipe out privacy protections that Californians enjoy, and which were \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/apra-privacy-bill-doomed/\">targeted by Congressional legislation last year\u003c/a>? And how would it affect a bill Becker authored that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/04/data-broker-registry/\">gives people a way to quickly delete personal information collected by data brokers\u003c/a>, set to go into effect next January?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they preempt that, it’s really negative for the country,” he said. “We’re [California] big enough that we can influence the country on our own, but if they preempt what we’re doing then it’s up to the federal government who has been unable to act on these issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Momentum for AI harms — and, possibly, for curbs on regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For all the worry, the moratorium is very unlikely to pass if it reaches the U.S. Senate, said Gus Rossi, director of public policy and strategy at Omidyar Network, which funds \u003ca href=\"http://omidyar.com/omidyar-network-launches-a-dedicated-funding-effort-to-promote-inclusive-and-responsible-development-of-generative-ai/\">public interest AI projects\u003c/a> and tracks AI regulation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because a federal regulation known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48444\">Byrd rule\u003c/a> requires that budget reconciliation bills be related to fiscal matters, and, in Rossi’s reading at least, a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation doesn’t fit that definition. But Rossi still thinks people should take it seriously, arguing that it’s an attempt by House Republicans to establish a marker on what they think should be the approach to AI legislation, and a sign of things to come.[aside postID=science_1996504 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/IMG_0962-1020x765.jpg']“The action is in the states, not D.C.,” he said. “That’s why some people in D.C. are trying to stop states … particularly California, who’s leading the pack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this bill or a similar one in the future passes, Rossi expects it would get challenged in court and put a chilling effect on efforts to regulate AI by state lawmakers. It’s unclear whether it’s legal for the federal government to make a blanket moratorium on state regulation, said Winters, who worked in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He agrees that the Byrd rule means the bill is unlikely to pass if it reaches the U.S. Senate, though Republicans may connect it to a $500 million plan to invest in AI for federal agencies and argue that it’s essential to limit state regulation in order to carry out certain budget provisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The House bill makes exceptions for states to continue enforcing some laws related to AI, such as laws that enable more use of AI or that are intended to improve government efficiency. It’s reasonable to \u003ca href=\"https://iapp.org/news/a/policy-analysis-us-house-committee-seeks-moratorium-on-state-AI-rules/\">interpret one of the exceptions\u003c/a> to mean states like California could continue enforcing privacy law if this bill passed, said Amba Kak, codirector of The AI Now Institute, a research and equitable AI advocacy organization. But doing so is risky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t count on the fact that courts will see it this way, especially in the context of an otherwise sweeping moratorium with the clear intention to clamp down on AI-related enforcement,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A House AI task force spent years discussing areas of bipartisan agreement and possible bills to pass to regulate AI, New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a hearing about the moratorium, but Congress was unable to pass any of that legislation. During that time, people \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2025/04/30/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says\">committed suicide from their interactions with chatbots\u003c/a> and kids and teens were \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2024/12/11/1-in-6-congresswomen-targeted-by-ai-generated-sexually-explicit-deepfakes\">harmed by falsely generated sexually exploitative deepfakes\u003c/a>, and so states decided to act to do things like force AI chatbots to protect the private information of people seeking mental health care in Utah and require chatbots include a protocol for when someone expresses the desire to commit self harm in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these protections are protections that Congress refuses to take up, refuses, and so states are taking up this responsibility,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Let states protect people. A moratorium is a deeply dangerous idea at this moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congresswoman Doris Matsui, a Democrat from the Sacramento area, echoed Ocasio-Cortez at the hearing, saying, “We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot by stopping the good work states have done and will continue to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the moratorium identify different sorts of harm if it doesn’t pass. A patchwork of state regulations of AI “is the fastest way to secure Chinese dominance of AI,” said Jay Obernolte, a Republican from California and co-chair of the House AI task force. He supports a moratorium, and if Congress fails to act, he said the people it will hurt most are entrepreneurs who can’t afford to follow regulatory regimes passed by different states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most destructive thing is if there’s fear out there that every few years as the winds of political fortune shift, the rules governing the use of AI completely change,” he said during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Broader pushback against AI regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The proposed moratorium is in line with efforts to prevent regulation of AI by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, who say such regulations will stifle innovation. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence/\">White House plan\u003c/a> to promote growth of the AI industry and likely reduce regulation is due out by this summer. Companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, and big businesses who use AI have lobbied in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to prevent regulation of the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guthrie’s proposal comes a few days after Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, \u003ca href=\"https://punchbowl.news/article/tech/cruz-to-push-ai-regulation/\">pushed for “light touch” AI regulation\u003c/a> to ensure the United States maintains AI supremacy over other nations and to, in Cruz’s words, “prevent needless state over-regulation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The intent of Guthrie’s bill, Winters believes, is to send a signal to tech companies and open up the door to possible future legislation if the budget reconciliation bill fails to pass. It’s a trend consistent with Senator Cruz’s statement last week and \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-identifies-16-federal-sites-across-country-data-center-and-ai-infrastructure\">efforts to remove red tape for data center projects on federal land\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d describe this as … explicitly saying we are supporting the AI companies more than the American people,” he said. “We’re seeing an explicit turn toward a deregulatory state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal lawmakers have steadily increased the number of bills they propose related to AI in recent years, but they have passed relatively few of them into law, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report\">AI Index report\u003c/a>. Out of more 220 bills proposed last year, only four passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, state lawmakers passed more than 130 bills to regulate AI last year. California passed \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">22 bills last year\u003c/a>, more than any other state, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/05/ca-eu-ai-regulation/\">attempted to harmonize its rules with the European Union’s AI Act\u003c/a> and other U.S. states. \u003ca href=\"https://csmapnyu.org/impact/policy/the-state-of-state-technology-policy-2024-report\">The 2024 State of State Tech Policy report\u003c/a>, from NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, found a 163% increase in tech policy proposals by state lawmakers last year compared to 2023. That trend is driven by one-party control in the vast majority of state houses across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The adage that states are the laboratories of democracy is still true, said Scott Brennen, a coauthor of the State of State Tech Policy report, so shutting down their ability to try out different approaches doesn’t seem like a good idea and could undercut the federal government’s ability to make better policy. Since AI is getting integrated into an ever-wider range of tools, Guthrie’s moratorium appears to apply widely, he added, including to social media platforms, ongoing efforts by states to protect children online, and data privacy protections that address automated decision making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t necessarily think state regulation of AI is always the best course of action, there are definitely areas like consumer data protection where it would be better if the federal government took the lead, but the federal government isn’t taking the lead,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/05/state-ai-regulation-ban/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>House Republicans moved to cut off artificial intelligence regulation by the states before it can take root, advancing legislation in Congress that, in California, would make it unlawful to enforce \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">more than 20 laws passed by the Legislature\u003c/a> and signed into law last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The moratorium, bundled in to a sweeping budget reconciliation bill this week, also threatens \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/03/ai-regulation-after-trump-election/\">30 bills the California Legislature is currently considering to regulate artificial intelligence\u003c/a>, including one that would \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab512\">require reporting when an insurance company uses AI to deny health care\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">another\u003c/a> that would require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used to decide on jobs, health care, or housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Privacy Protection Agency \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/pdf/cppa_letter_opossing_budget_recon_enforce.pdf\">sent a letter\u003c/a> to Congress Monday that says the moratorium “could rob millions of Americans of rights they already enjoy” and threatens critical privacy protections approved by California voters in 2020, such as the right to opt out of business use of automated decision-making technology and transparency about how their personal information is used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, the law would stop legislative efforts in the works nationwide. Lawmakers from 45 states are or have considered nearly 600 draft bills to regulate artificial intelligence this year, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.transparencycoalition.ai/\">Transparency Coalition\u003c/a>, a group that tracks AI policy efforts by state lawmakers and supports legislation to regulate the technology. California has passed more bills since 2016 to regulate AI than any other U.S. state, according to Stanford’s \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report\">2025 AI Index report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure was introduced by Congressman Brett Guthrie, a Republican from Kentucky and chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee, who said it is necessary to resolve a patchwork of state regulation. On Wednesday, members of Congress in that House committee voted 30–24 along party lines to approve the budget bill that includes the moratorium. It will now advance to the House floor and potentially the Senate, where some observers say it faces an uphill battle against rules that limit policy changes in budget proposals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As written, the moratorium would lift after 10 years. But it would have plenty of impact in the meantime, said Ben Winters, an attorney for the Consumer Federation of America. In California, he thinks the legislation could halt efforts by the Privacy Protection Agency to regulate automated decision-making, prevent enforcement of laws to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/new-california-laws-2024/#3650b1e8-5ee9-49e6-8504-a636608a7de4\">protect voters from deepfakes\u003c/a> and short circuit draft bills aimed at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">protecting people from discrimination\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/12/california-lawmakers-want-to-ban-pricing-software/\">landlords who use AI to raise rent prices\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this bill were to pass, California couldn’t protect its citizens from exactly those harms,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies and lobbyists are attempting to use Washington, D.C., to undermine California’s legislative AI leadership, said state Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Becker has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb1120\">authored\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/04/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says/\">coauthored\u003c/a> a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/04/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says/\">number\u003c/a> of bills regulating AI, including one signed into law that requires AI makers\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb942\"> provide tools to consumers so they know when generative AI is in use\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an effort to tell people when something was created by AI, and so if this gets delayed for a year or two or 10 it’s going to have really negative consequences,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s unclear, he said, is exactly what regulation is covered by the moratorium. Would it, for example, wipe out privacy protections that Californians enjoy, and which were \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/apra-privacy-bill-doomed/\">targeted by Congressional legislation last year\u003c/a>? And how would it affect a bill Becker authored that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/04/data-broker-registry/\">gives people a way to quickly delete personal information collected by data brokers\u003c/a>, set to go into effect next January?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they preempt that, it’s really negative for the country,” he said. “We’re [California] big enough that we can influence the country on our own, but if they preempt what we’re doing then it’s up to the federal government who has been unable to act on these issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Momentum for AI harms — and, possibly, for curbs on regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For all the worry, the moratorium is very unlikely to pass if it reaches the U.S. Senate, said Gus Rossi, director of public policy and strategy at Omidyar Network, which funds \u003ca href=\"http://omidyar.com/omidyar-network-launches-a-dedicated-funding-effort-to-promote-inclusive-and-responsible-development-of-generative-ai/\">public interest AI projects\u003c/a> and tracks AI regulation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because a federal regulation known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48444\">Byrd rule\u003c/a> requires that budget reconciliation bills be related to fiscal matters, and, in Rossi’s reading at least, a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation doesn’t fit that definition. But Rossi still thinks people should take it seriously, arguing that it’s an attempt by House Republicans to establish a marker on what they think should be the approach to AI legislation, and a sign of things to come.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The action is in the states, not D.C.,” he said. “That’s why some people in D.C. are trying to stop states … particularly California, who’s leading the pack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this bill or a similar one in the future passes, Rossi expects it would get challenged in court and put a chilling effect on efforts to regulate AI by state lawmakers. It’s unclear whether it’s legal for the federal government to make a blanket moratorium on state regulation, said Winters, who worked in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He agrees that the Byrd rule means the bill is unlikely to pass if it reaches the U.S. Senate, though Republicans may connect it to a $500 million plan to invest in AI for federal agencies and argue that it’s essential to limit state regulation in order to carry out certain budget provisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The House bill makes exceptions for states to continue enforcing some laws related to AI, such as laws that enable more use of AI or that are intended to improve government efficiency. It’s reasonable to \u003ca href=\"https://iapp.org/news/a/policy-analysis-us-house-committee-seeks-moratorium-on-state-AI-rules/\">interpret one of the exceptions\u003c/a> to mean states like California could continue enforcing privacy law if this bill passed, said Amba Kak, codirector of The AI Now Institute, a research and equitable AI advocacy organization. But doing so is risky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t count on the fact that courts will see it this way, especially in the context of an otherwise sweeping moratorium with the clear intention to clamp down on AI-related enforcement,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A House AI task force spent years discussing areas of bipartisan agreement and possible bills to pass to regulate AI, New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a hearing about the moratorium, but Congress was unable to pass any of that legislation. During that time, people \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2025/04/30/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says\">committed suicide from their interactions with chatbots\u003c/a> and kids and teens were \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2024/12/11/1-in-6-congresswomen-targeted-by-ai-generated-sexually-explicit-deepfakes\">harmed by falsely generated sexually exploitative deepfakes\u003c/a>, and so states decided to act to do things like force AI chatbots to protect the private information of people seeking mental health care in Utah and require chatbots include a protocol for when someone expresses the desire to commit self harm in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these protections are protections that Congress refuses to take up, refuses, and so states are taking up this responsibility,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Let states protect people. A moratorium is a deeply dangerous idea at this moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congresswoman Doris Matsui, a Democrat from the Sacramento area, echoed Ocasio-Cortez at the hearing, saying, “We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot by stopping the good work states have done and will continue to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the moratorium identify different sorts of harm if it doesn’t pass. A patchwork of state regulations of AI “is the fastest way to secure Chinese dominance of AI,” said Jay Obernolte, a Republican from California and co-chair of the House AI task force. He supports a moratorium, and if Congress fails to act, he said the people it will hurt most are entrepreneurs who can’t afford to follow regulatory regimes passed by different states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most destructive thing is if there’s fear out there that every few years as the winds of political fortune shift, the rules governing the use of AI completely change,” he said during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Broader pushback against AI regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The proposed moratorium is in line with efforts to prevent regulation of AI by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, who say such regulations will stifle innovation. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence/\">White House plan\u003c/a> to promote growth of the AI industry and likely reduce regulation is due out by this summer. Companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, and big businesses who use AI have lobbied in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to prevent regulation of the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guthrie’s proposal comes a few days after Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, \u003ca href=\"https://punchbowl.news/article/tech/cruz-to-push-ai-regulation/\">pushed for “light touch” AI regulation\u003c/a> to ensure the United States maintains AI supremacy over other nations and to, in Cruz’s words, “prevent needless state over-regulation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The intent of Guthrie’s bill, Winters believes, is to send a signal to tech companies and open up the door to possible future legislation if the budget reconciliation bill fails to pass. It’s a trend consistent with Senator Cruz’s statement last week and \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-identifies-16-federal-sites-across-country-data-center-and-ai-infrastructure\">efforts to remove red tape for data center projects on federal land\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d describe this as … explicitly saying we are supporting the AI companies more than the American people,” he said. “We’re seeing an explicit turn toward a deregulatory state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal lawmakers have steadily increased the number of bills they propose related to AI in recent years, but they have passed relatively few of them into law, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report\">AI Index report\u003c/a>. Out of more 220 bills proposed last year, only four passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, state lawmakers passed more than 130 bills to regulate AI last year. California passed \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">22 bills last year\u003c/a>, more than any other state, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/05/ca-eu-ai-regulation/\">attempted to harmonize its rules with the European Union’s AI Act\u003c/a> and other U.S. states. \u003ca href=\"https://csmapnyu.org/impact/policy/the-state-of-state-technology-policy-2024-report\">The 2024 State of State Tech Policy report\u003c/a>, from NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, found a 163% increase in tech policy proposals by state lawmakers last year compared to 2023. That trend is driven by one-party control in the vast majority of state houses across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The adage that states are the laboratories of democracy is still true, said Scott Brennen, a coauthor of the State of State Tech Policy report, so shutting down their ability to try out different approaches doesn’t seem like a good idea and could undercut the federal government’s ability to make better policy. Since AI is getting integrated into an ever-wider range of tools, Guthrie’s moratorium appears to apply widely, he added, including to social media platforms, ongoing efforts by states to protect children online, and data privacy protections that address automated decision making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t necessarily think state regulation of AI is always the best course of action, there are definitely areas like consumer data protection where it would be better if the federal government took the lead, but the federal government isn’t taking the lead,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/05/state-ai-regulation-ban/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For children and teenagers feeling anxious and alienated from their peers and adults, AI companion chatbots can \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996504/ai-replace-therapist-benefits-risks-unsettling-truths\">mimic the human compassion\u003c/a> they’re longing for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re also available 24/7. However, for parents, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038154/kids-talking-ai-companion-chatbots-stanford-researchers-say-thats-bad-idea\">reported\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034490/ai-companions-seductive-risk-teens-senators-want-more-guardrails\">dangers\u003c/a> of AI companion chatbots are alarming. At least \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25248089-megan-garcia-vs-character-ai/\">one parent has sued\u003c/a>, alleging \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/30/tech/teen-suicide-character-ai-lawsuit\">her 14-year-old son was encouraged to take his own life\u003c/a> last year by a chatbot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#ExpertadvicefortalkingtokidsaboutAIchatbots\">Expert advice for talking to kids about AI chatbots\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Regulatory solutions have yet to materialize, but the California legislature is considering \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243\">State Bill 243\u003c/a>, introduced by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego and soon to be heard in the Senate Appropriations committee, that would require chatbot operators to implement critical safeguards to protect users from the addictive, isolating and influential aspects of AI chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://ncdoj.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/54-State-Ags-Urge-Study-of-AI-and-harmful-impacts-on-Children.pdf\">2023 letter\u003c/a>, 54 state attorneys general from both political parties urged Congress to act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI,” they wrote. “The proverbial walls of the city have already been breached. Now is the time to act. ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you’re a parent or caregiver whose child uses an AI chatbot — or wants to try one — how can you talk to them about the risks? That’s where human professionals can help. KQED reached out to experts, who’ve offered parents five key pieces of guidance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#Wheretofindhumanledsupportforkids\">Where to find human-led support for kids\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"ExpertadvicefortalkingtokidsaboutAIchatbots\">\u003c/a>Start with listening, rather than telling kids what to do\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s natural for kids to be curious, said Vicki Harrison, Program Director for Stanford University’s Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing, who has two teenagers, ages 13 and 15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12038155\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12038155\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED-800x645.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"645\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED-800x645.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED-1020x823.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED-160x129.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED.jpg 1028w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Younger children may struggle with the distinction between fantasy and reality, tweens may be vulnerable to parasocial attachment, and teens may use social AI companions to avoid the challenges of building and sustaining real relationships. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Common Sense Media and Stanford's Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Harrison sympathizes with parents whose first inclination is to panic and demand their child delete the app, but adds, don’t do it. “’Cause they’re not going to ever tell you anything again if you react that way.” She encourages parents to approach the conversation with curiosity instead, even though she acknowledges this is easier said than done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we’re coming in fearful, they’re going to go into a reactive space, and they’re going to want to defend themselves, because they already feel insecure and self-conscious,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.healingwithmindfulness.com\">Laurie Cousins\u003c/a>, a certified mindfulness teacher who works with children and families in Los Angeles. She also has two children, both now in college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Harrison and Cousins recommend approaching the conversation about AI companions by bringing up \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038154/kids-talking-ai-companion-chatbots-stanford-researchers-say-thats-bad-idea\">recent news stories\u003c/a>, because it’s clear to the children that they aren’t personally in trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cousins suggests sharing what you learned and asking open-ended questions. These could include: ‘I was curious because I found out this. Do you know anything about that?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Help your kids understand how AI companion chatbots take advantage of human wiring\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>AI models don’t “understand” emotions the way humans do. They recognize and respond to textual cues learned from processing massive amounts of data gleaned from past conversations, interaction with therapists and therapy-focused websites, as well as random advice found online on platforms like Reddit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all want, but especially the primitive parts of us, want to feel in control,” Cousins said about the way humans respond to companion chatbots, adding, “Our dopamine receptors are firing, and the oxytocin is firing in the way that it feels relational, it feels like a positive reinforcement.”[aside postID=news_12038154 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-1020x680.jpg']Adults with some self-awareness of their own mental health struggles and personal history might be able to course correct when a companion chatbot fails to pick up on signs of depression, anxiety, ADHD and the like — and when it either affirms ideas ungrounded in reality, or encourages risky behavior in real life. Children often don’t have that self-awareness, and may not understand how some of the interactions they’re asking for may be damaging to their mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=understanding-the-teen-brain-1-3051\">Adolescents are in the emotional brain\u003c/a>, right?” Cousins said. “It’s not that they don’t have wisdom. They’re so flooded with emotions and maybe don’t have that risk-averse wisdom yet. Parents say, ‘What were you thinking?’ Well, they weren’t thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, knowing intellectually that software is designed to emotionally manipulate users into maintaining engagement is not the same thing as those users being able to control their emotional response to it, especially when they’re still developing their sense of identity, connection and belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cousins also suggests sharing with your kids — in an age-appropriate fashion — that companion chatbots are developed by companies with a profit-seeking motive. You could also explain to them that the companies behind the chatbots are likely sharing or selling all sorts of personal data, given that they are not bound by the same \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/php/resources/health-insurance-portability-and-accountability-act-of-1996-hipaa.html\">privacy laws\u003c/a> as human therapists.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Model the kind of healthy human relationships you want your child to emulate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Whether it’s speaking kindly to a cashier at a store, joining sports leagues, or attending cultural events, Cousins argues parents need to show their children how to relate to other people. “That’s how we feel safer in community, in society, is when we feel we’re relating with one another.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that may require adults to address their own habits, given how digitally dependent we’ve all become.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You and I know the ‘before times.’ We know that it’s possible to interact in the world without chatbots, without googling everything,” Harrison said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children, not so much. Increasingly, it’s difficult for all of us to avoid chatbots of one kind or another. “I’m slightly alarmed, being in Silicon Valley, just how prevalent AI has become. We’re unleashing it into the world regardless of the consequences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One idea is to encourage kids to make eye contact with others by modeling it yourself. “They need to see that someone is giving them eye contact, that’s meeting them,” Cousins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Keep an eye on how much time your child spends staring at a screen\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison urges parents to “scaffold” access to digital devices. For instance, rather than handing a smartphone to a child on their tenth or twelfth birthday, “maybe start with a not-so-smart phone, maybe only approve one app at a time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harrison adds that parents can create family media plans and agreements and get their kids’ buy-in. “‘OK, here’s a new responsibility. Here’s my expectations of how you’re going to use it. If you want more privilege, you have to agree to use it in a certain kind of way.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11789507\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11789507 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1281\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920-1200x801.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Parents play an active role in managing screen time by setting clear boundaries — like approving apps individually — and involving kids in family media plans to build healthy habits early. \u003ccite>(Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cousins recommends periodically spot-checking the histories on children’s devices — at least, until they figure out how to delete their histories. But she also recommends parents monitor the amount of time children spend staring at a screen, regardless of whether they’re interacting with humans or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve worked with young people who are gaming all through the night and going to school with two hours of sleep. That’s a dependency, right? That’s an addiction. I’m saying to the parents, ‘Why do you have this in their room?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She argues responsible parenting means setting boundaries, likening digital dependency to an itch. Scratching the itch doesn’t cure the bite or the rash, but inflames both the itch and the urge to continue scratching it. “You got a big dopamine dump and now you’re chasing it, you know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to a recent report from Common Sense Media and Stanford researchers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038154/kids-talking-ai-companion-chatbots-stanford-researchers-say-thats-bad-idea\">raising the alarm\u003c/a> about minors using AI companion chatbots, a CharacterAI spokesperson wrote KQED, “Banning a new technology for teenagers has never been an effective approach — not when it was tried with video games, the internet, or movies containing violence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, the company delivers a \u003ca href=\"https://character.ai/safety/teen-safety\">specialized version\u003c/a> of its large language model to 13–18 year olds. Among other things, this model includes a time-spent notification that notifies children if they have spent an hour on the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Wheretofindhumanledsupportforkids\">\u003c/a>Seek out additional human resources\u003c/h2>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://allcove.org\">\u003cstrong>allcove\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>A free, welcoming space for youth ages 12–25, developed originally in Australia and now growing across the U.S., including locations in the Bay Area. Think of it as a “one-stop shop” offering mental health support, physical care, peer counseling, and help with substance abuse.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org\">Common Sense Media\u003cbr>\n\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>The nonprofit provides independent, age-based reviews, ratings, and advice for parents, caregivers, and educators about media and technology for children and teens. It covers movies, TV shows, books, video games, apps, websites, and even TikTok and YouTube channels.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://badassgirls.me\">\u003cstrong>Bad Ass Girls\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>An empowering mentorship and community program for preteen and teen girls. It’s built to help them explore confidence, connection, and emotional wellness through guided support and real talk.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodformedia.org\">\u003cstrong>#GoodforMEdia\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>This is a youth-led program where teens help other teens make smart, thoughtful choices about their digital lives. It’s like having a mentor who actually understands how tricky social media can be — because they’re living it too.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://ggie.berkeley.edu\">\u003cstrong>Greater Good in Education\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>A thoughtful collection of research-based articles, tips, and newsletters for parents and educators. Created by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, it focuses on emotional well-being, mindfulness, and building empathy in young people.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://solunaapp.com\">\u003cstrong>Soluna \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>Free for youth in California, this app offers mental health tools, mood tracking, and direct access to counselors. A great option for teens who might not feel ready to talk in person but still need support.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.teenline.org\">\u003cstrong>Teenline\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Teens everywhere can talk or text with trained teen volunteers. It’s anonymous and especially helpful for teens who feel more comfortable opening up to peers.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.childrenandscreens.org\">\u003cstrong>Children and screens\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nA national nonprofit based in D.C. that offers an “Ask the Experts” series written with parents in mind — full of clear, science-backed tips.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For children and teenagers feeling anxious and alienated from their peers and adults, AI companion chatbots can \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996504/ai-replace-therapist-benefits-risks-unsettling-truths\">mimic the human compassion\u003c/a> they’re longing for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re also available 24/7. However, for parents, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038154/kids-talking-ai-companion-chatbots-stanford-researchers-say-thats-bad-idea\">reported\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034490/ai-companions-seductive-risk-teens-senators-want-more-guardrails\">dangers\u003c/a> of AI companion chatbots are alarming. At least \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25248089-megan-garcia-vs-character-ai/\">one parent has sued\u003c/a>, alleging \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/30/tech/teen-suicide-character-ai-lawsuit\">her 14-year-old son was encouraged to take his own life\u003c/a> last year by a chatbot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#ExpertadvicefortalkingtokidsaboutAIchatbots\">Expert advice for talking to kids about AI chatbots\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Regulatory solutions have yet to materialize, but the California legislature is considering \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243\">State Bill 243\u003c/a>, introduced by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego and soon to be heard in the Senate Appropriations committee, that would require chatbot operators to implement critical safeguards to protect users from the addictive, isolating and influential aspects of AI chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://ncdoj.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/54-State-Ags-Urge-Study-of-AI-and-harmful-impacts-on-Children.pdf\">2023 letter\u003c/a>, 54 state attorneys general from both political parties urged Congress to act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI,” they wrote. “The proverbial walls of the city have already been breached. Now is the time to act. ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you’re a parent or caregiver whose child uses an AI chatbot — or wants to try one — how can you talk to them about the risks? That’s where human professionals can help. KQED reached out to experts, who’ve offered parents five key pieces of guidance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#Wheretofindhumanledsupportforkids\">Where to find human-led support for kids\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"ExpertadvicefortalkingtokidsaboutAIchatbots\">\u003c/a>Start with listening, rather than telling kids what to do\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s natural for kids to be curious, said Vicki Harrison, Program Director for Stanford University’s Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing, who has two teenagers, ages 13 and 15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12038155\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12038155\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED-800x645.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"645\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED-800x645.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED-1020x823.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED-160x129.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250429-Kids-and-Chatbots-01-KQED.jpg 1028w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Younger children may struggle with the distinction between fantasy and reality, tweens may be vulnerable to parasocial attachment, and teens may use social AI companions to avoid the challenges of building and sustaining real relationships. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Common Sense Media and Stanford's Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Harrison sympathizes with parents whose first inclination is to panic and demand their child delete the app, but adds, don’t do it. “’Cause they’re not going to ever tell you anything again if you react that way.” She encourages parents to approach the conversation with curiosity instead, even though she acknowledges this is easier said than done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we’re coming in fearful, they’re going to go into a reactive space, and they’re going to want to defend themselves, because they already feel insecure and self-conscious,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.healingwithmindfulness.com\">Laurie Cousins\u003c/a>, a certified mindfulness teacher who works with children and families in Los Angeles. She also has two children, both now in college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Harrison and Cousins recommend approaching the conversation about AI companions by bringing up \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038154/kids-talking-ai-companion-chatbots-stanford-researchers-say-thats-bad-idea\">recent news stories\u003c/a>, because it’s clear to the children that they aren’t personally in trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cousins suggests sharing what you learned and asking open-ended questions. These could include: ‘I was curious because I found out this. Do you know anything about that?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Help your kids understand how AI companion chatbots take advantage of human wiring\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>AI models don’t “understand” emotions the way humans do. They recognize and respond to textual cues learned from processing massive amounts of data gleaned from past conversations, interaction with therapists and therapy-focused websites, as well as random advice found online on platforms like Reddit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all want, but especially the primitive parts of us, want to feel in control,” Cousins said about the way humans respond to companion chatbots, adding, “Our dopamine receptors are firing, and the oxytocin is firing in the way that it feels relational, it feels like a positive reinforcement.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Adults with some self-awareness of their own mental health struggles and personal history might be able to course correct when a companion chatbot fails to pick up on signs of depression, anxiety, ADHD and the like — and when it either affirms ideas ungrounded in reality, or encourages risky behavior in real life. Children often don’t have that self-awareness, and may not understand how some of the interactions they’re asking for may be damaging to their mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=understanding-the-teen-brain-1-3051\">Adolescents are in the emotional brain\u003c/a>, right?” Cousins said. “It’s not that they don’t have wisdom. They’re so flooded with emotions and maybe don’t have that risk-averse wisdom yet. Parents say, ‘What were you thinking?’ Well, they weren’t thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, knowing intellectually that software is designed to emotionally manipulate users into maintaining engagement is not the same thing as those users being able to control their emotional response to it, especially when they’re still developing their sense of identity, connection and belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cousins also suggests sharing with your kids — in an age-appropriate fashion — that companion chatbots are developed by companies with a profit-seeking motive. You could also explain to them that the companies behind the chatbots are likely sharing or selling all sorts of personal data, given that they are not bound by the same \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/php/resources/health-insurance-portability-and-accountability-act-of-1996-hipaa.html\">privacy laws\u003c/a> as human therapists.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Model the kind of healthy human relationships you want your child to emulate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Whether it’s speaking kindly to a cashier at a store, joining sports leagues, or attending cultural events, Cousins argues parents need to show their children how to relate to other people. “That’s how we feel safer in community, in society, is when we feel we’re relating with one another.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that may require adults to address their own habits, given how digitally dependent we’ve all become.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You and I know the ‘before times.’ We know that it’s possible to interact in the world without chatbots, without googling everything,” Harrison said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children, not so much. Increasingly, it’s difficult for all of us to avoid chatbots of one kind or another. “I’m slightly alarmed, being in Silicon Valley, just how prevalent AI has become. We’re unleashing it into the world regardless of the consequences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One idea is to encourage kids to make eye contact with others by modeling it yourself. “They need to see that someone is giving them eye contact, that’s meeting them,” Cousins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Keep an eye on how much time your child spends staring at a screen\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison urges parents to “scaffold” access to digital devices. For instance, rather than handing a smartphone to a child on their tenth or twelfth birthday, “maybe start with a not-so-smart phone, maybe only approve one app at a time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harrison adds that parents can create family media plans and agreements and get their kids’ buy-in. “‘OK, here’s a new responsibility. Here’s my expectations of how you’re going to use it. If you want more privilege, you have to agree to use it in a certain kind of way.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11789507\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11789507 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1281\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/12/cellphone-1920-1200x801.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Parents play an active role in managing screen time by setting clear boundaries — like approving apps individually — and involving kids in family media plans to build healthy habits early. \u003ccite>(Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cousins recommends periodically spot-checking the histories on children’s devices — at least, until they figure out how to delete their histories. But she also recommends parents monitor the amount of time children spend staring at a screen, regardless of whether they’re interacting with humans or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve worked with young people who are gaming all through the night and going to school with two hours of sleep. That’s a dependency, right? That’s an addiction. I’m saying to the parents, ‘Why do you have this in their room?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She argues responsible parenting means setting boundaries, likening digital dependency to an itch. Scratching the itch doesn’t cure the bite or the rash, but inflames both the itch and the urge to continue scratching it. “You got a big dopamine dump and now you’re chasing it, you know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to a recent report from Common Sense Media and Stanford researchers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038154/kids-talking-ai-companion-chatbots-stanford-researchers-say-thats-bad-idea\">raising the alarm\u003c/a> about minors using AI companion chatbots, a CharacterAI spokesperson wrote KQED, “Banning a new technology for teenagers has never been an effective approach — not when it was tried with video games, the internet, or movies containing violence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, the company delivers a \u003ca href=\"https://character.ai/safety/teen-safety\">specialized version\u003c/a> of its large language model to 13–18 year olds. Among other things, this model includes a time-spent notification that notifies children if they have spent an hour on the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Wheretofindhumanledsupportforkids\">\u003c/a>Seek out additional human resources\u003c/h2>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://allcove.org\">\u003cstrong>allcove\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>A free, welcoming space for youth ages 12–25, developed originally in Australia and now growing across the U.S., including locations in the Bay Area. Think of it as a “one-stop shop” offering mental health support, physical care, peer counseling, and help with substance abuse.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org\">Common Sense Media\u003cbr>\n\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>The nonprofit provides independent, age-based reviews, ratings, and advice for parents, caregivers, and educators about media and technology for children and teens. It covers movies, TV shows, books, video games, apps, websites, and even TikTok and YouTube channels.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://badassgirls.me\">\u003cstrong>Bad Ass Girls\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>An empowering mentorship and community program for preteen and teen girls. It’s built to help them explore confidence, connection, and emotional wellness through guided support and real talk.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodformedia.org\">\u003cstrong>#GoodforMEdia\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>This is a youth-led program where teens help other teens make smart, thoughtful choices about their digital lives. It’s like having a mentor who actually understands how tricky social media can be — because they’re living it too.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://ggie.berkeley.edu\">\u003cstrong>Greater Good in Education\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>A thoughtful collection of research-based articles, tips, and newsletters for parents and educators. Created by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, it focuses on emotional well-being, mindfulness, and building empathy in young people.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://solunaapp.com\">\u003cstrong>Soluna \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>Free for youth in California, this app offers mental health tools, mood tracking, and direct access to counselors. A great option for teens who might not feel ready to talk in person but still need support.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.teenline.org\">\u003cstrong>Teenline\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Teens everywhere can talk or text with trained teen volunteers. It’s anonymous and especially helpful for teens who feel more comfortable opening up to peers.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.childrenandscreens.org\">\u003cstrong>Children and screens\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nA national nonprofit based in D.C. that offers an “Ask the Experts” series written with parents in mind — full of clear, science-backed tips.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Visa announced Wednesday it is partnering with leading \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ai\">AI\u003c/a> chatbot developers like Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI and Perplexity to connect their AI systems to Visa’s payments network and take online shopping out of consumer hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Magical” AI technologies have the potential to “radically transform commerce,” Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said at this week’s Visa Product Drop 2025. Visa is also working with IBM, online payment company Stripe and phone-maker Samsung on the initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why do consumers need Visa et al. to insert themselves in the process? Trust and safety — at least, according to the company. Because, as it is now, within milliseconds of an attempted purchase, Visa is able to sift through vast amounts of data to assess whether patterns imply there’s fraud or a sale going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Visa recognizes these patterns through our data. We understand the rhythms, and those rhythms are what enable us to build solutions that deliver better buyer experiences, that grow sales for sellers with less fraud, and less declines and more completed transactions,” McInerney explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leaving aside that last time you spotted fraud on your bill that your credit card issuer and Visa didn’t, there will be kinks to work out, said Dr. Jennifer King, a privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Center for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s possible the first places where these [AI agents] work are trusted partners. So if I want my Starbucks latte to be ordered for me and ready every morning on my walk to work, I just pick it up. I know what it costs, and I’ll get the receipt from Starbucks eventually through my system. There’s no negotiation there. It’s just straightforward,” King said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With more complex or one-time purchases, it’s less clear whether AI shop bots can guarantee the consumer is getting a desirable deal. That’s because we’re all shopping in what’s called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036411/googles-ad-dominance-is-illegal-federal-judge-rules\">ad surveillance economy\u003c/a>, where thousands of companies you’ve never heard of buy and sell all sorts of personal data. That impacts the prices you’re offered through the growing practice of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028137/california-lawmakers-take-on-predatory-surveillance-pricing\">dynamic pricing\u003c/a>, where retailers sift through all that data to determine the highest price any individual consumer is likely to pay for a product and service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This ends up being a world potentially where consumers are captured even more than they are now, and are subject to higher prices and potentially deceptive conduct that they aren’t even seeing, because they’re no longer the one making the decision,” King said.[aside postID=news_12038154 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-1020x680.jpg']“There are so many sticky situations you can get into,” added David Harris, a senior policy advisor of the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy. Harris also lectures on AI ethics and social media at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and previously worked as a research manager on the responsible AI team at Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harris recalled the court case where Air Canada was \u003ca href=\"https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bccrt/doc/2024/2024bccrt149/2024bccrt149.html\">ordered \u003c/a>to pay compensation after its AI chatbot misled a customer into believing he could get the difference between a full-price ticket and a discounted bereavement fare refunded. The airline tried to argue the bot was a “separate legal entity” that was “responsible for its own actions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12037518/newsom-signals-to-california-privacy-watchdog-that-hes-on-big-techs-side-on-ai-regulation\">paucity of regulatory oversight\u003c/a> and the slow and uneven response of courts, what hope do any of us have in this brave new world rolling out in the near future? Competition, said Dr. King.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of this is going to require trust. If you can’t trust these [AI] agents to operate on your behalf, people aren’t going to adopt them,” Dr. King said. “There’s been such a trust deficit in online services. This, to my mind, ups the ante. If people are finding out that they’re getting ripped off left and right by using these tools, they’re not going to use them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Visa, its pilot projects began this week, ahead of more widespread usage expected next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Visa announced Wednesday it is partnering with leading \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ai\">AI\u003c/a> chatbot developers like Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI and Perplexity to connect their AI systems to Visa’s payments network and take online shopping out of consumer hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Magical” AI technologies have the potential to “radically transform commerce,” Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said at this week’s Visa Product Drop 2025. Visa is also working with IBM, online payment company Stripe and phone-maker Samsung on the initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why do consumers need Visa et al. to insert themselves in the process? Trust and safety — at least, according to the company. Because, as it is now, within milliseconds of an attempted purchase, Visa is able to sift through vast amounts of data to assess whether patterns imply there’s fraud or a sale going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Visa recognizes these patterns through our data. We understand the rhythms, and those rhythms are what enable us to build solutions that deliver better buyer experiences, that grow sales for sellers with less fraud, and less declines and more completed transactions,” McInerney explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leaving aside that last time you spotted fraud on your bill that your credit card issuer and Visa didn’t, there will be kinks to work out, said Dr. Jennifer King, a privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Center for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s possible the first places where these [AI agents] work are trusted partners. So if I want my Starbucks latte to be ordered for me and ready every morning on my walk to work, I just pick it up. I know what it costs, and I’ll get the receipt from Starbucks eventually through my system. There’s no negotiation there. It’s just straightforward,” King said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With more complex or one-time purchases, it’s less clear whether AI shop bots can guarantee the consumer is getting a desirable deal. That’s because we’re all shopping in what’s called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036411/googles-ad-dominance-is-illegal-federal-judge-rules\">ad surveillance economy\u003c/a>, where thousands of companies you’ve never heard of buy and sell all sorts of personal data. That impacts the prices you’re offered through the growing practice of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028137/california-lawmakers-take-on-predatory-surveillance-pricing\">dynamic pricing\u003c/a>, where retailers sift through all that data to determine the highest price any individual consumer is likely to pay for a product and service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This ends up being a world potentially where consumers are captured even more than they are now, and are subject to higher prices and potentially deceptive conduct that they aren’t even seeing, because they’re no longer the one making the decision,” King said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“There are so many sticky situations you can get into,” added David Harris, a senior policy advisor of the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy. Harris also lectures on AI ethics and social media at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and previously worked as a research manager on the responsible AI team at Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harris recalled the court case where Air Canada was \u003ca href=\"https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bccrt/doc/2024/2024bccrt149/2024bccrt149.html\">ordered \u003c/a>to pay compensation after its AI chatbot misled a customer into believing he could get the difference between a full-price ticket and a discounted bereavement fare refunded. The airline tried to argue the bot was a “separate legal entity” that was “responsible for its own actions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12037518/newsom-signals-to-california-privacy-watchdog-that-hes-on-big-techs-side-on-ai-regulation\">paucity of regulatory oversight\u003c/a> and the slow and uneven response of courts, what hope do any of us have in this brave new world rolling out in the near future? Competition, said Dr. King.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of this is going to require trust. If you can’t trust these [AI] agents to operate on your behalf, people aren’t going to adopt them,” Dr. King said. “There’s been such a trust deficit in online services. This, to my mind, ups the ante. If people are finding out that they’re getting ripped off left and right by using these tools, they’re not going to use them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Visa, its pilot projects began this week, ahead of more widespread usage expected next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Kids Are Talking to AI Companion Chatbots. Stanford Researchers Say That’s a Bad Idea.",
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"headTitle": "Kids Are Talking to AI Companion Chatbots. Stanford Researchers Say That’s a Bad Idea. | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Imagine you’re a lonely 14-year-old. Maybe you want to talk about sex. Maybe you want to complain about school or ask about the voices in your head. Whatever the case, it’s appealing to imagine a context in which no adult shuts down your curiosity — or worse, makes you feel awkward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this explains the popularity of online companions to children and teens. The chatbots mimic human social interaction in a more sophisticated fashion than digital assistants like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/openai\">OpenAI\u003c/a>’s ChatGPT or Amazon’s Alexa. Unlike those assistants, chatbots are much more likely to veer into socially controversial and even illegal territory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companion chatbot users can personalize their experience, like opting for characters from gaming, anime and pop culture. For instance, a 14-year-old boy from Florida \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034490/ai-companions-seductive-risk-teens-senators-want-more-guardrails\">took his own life last year\u003c/a> after growing emotionally close to a chatbot that mimicked the “Game of Thrones” character \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbuBfizSnPk\">Daenerys Targaryen\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The characters play along with the idea that they’re almost human, talking about eating meals or meeting up in real life, actively encouraging users to stay engaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What could go wrong with minors using this technology? Plenty, according to researchers from Stanford School of Medicine’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.stanfordbrainstorm.com\">Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation\u003c/a>, who collaborated with \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ai-ratings/social-ai-companions?gate=riskassessment\">Common Sense Media\u003c/a> to set up test accounts for 14-year-olds, to evaluate how software from three different chatbot developers interacts with young people struggling to learn impulse control and social skills. They report that it took minimal prompting to get Character.AI, Nomi and Replika chatbots to engage in behavior harmful to human mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11146714\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11146714 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers from Stanford School of Medicine’s Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation, in collaboration with Common Sense Media, tested how chatbots interact with teens, finding that AI companions from Character.AI, Nomi and Replika quickly engaged in behavior potentially harmful to youth mental health — with major platforms like Snapchat and Meta also expanding their AI offerings for young users. \u003ccite>(Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We did not have to do backflips to get the models to perform in the way that they did. The AI ‘friends’ will actively participate in sexual conversations and role play on any topic, with graphic details,” said Robbie Torney, Common Sense Media’s senior director for AI programs and project lead on what the nonprofit organization calls a risk assessment of the AI companion chatbot sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Character.AI, Nomi and Replika are not the only companies developing these products. Snapchat offers AI digital companions who are willing to \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/14/snapchat-myai/\">talk to teens\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf\">Meta\u003c/a> is racing to catch up across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are countless other, similar social AI companions out there, with more being created every day,” the report states. “So, while we use examples from the specific products we tested to illustrate the potential harms of these tools, the research and evaluation we conducted for this risk assessment covers social AI companions more broadly.”[aside postID=science_1996504 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/IMG_0962-1020x765.jpg']The researchers argue that one of the most troubling features of companion chatbots is the way they are hardwired to be agreeable, engaging with a population of humans hardwired to be vulnerable. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/about-mental-illness/mental-health-conditions/\">National Alliance on Mental Illness\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15939837\">50\u003c/a> percent of all mental disorders, like cutting, suicidal ideation and schizophrenia, begin by age 14, 75 percent by age 24.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chatbots “blur the line between fantasy and reality, at the exact time when adolescents are developing critical skills like emotional regulation, identity formation, and healthy relational attachment,” said Dr. Nina Vasan, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. “Instead of encouraging healthy real-world relationships, these AI friends pull users even deeper into artificial ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companion chatbots, the researchers warn, are not prepared to replace parents or professionals in identifying the first signs of something that requires speedy and effective treatment. “In our testing, when a user showed signs of serious mental illness and suggested a dangerous action, the AI did not intervene. In fact, it encouraged dangerous behavior,” Vasan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI companions reinforced users’ delusions, validating fears of being followed and offering advice on decoding imaginary messages, researchers said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI companions don’t understand the real consequences of bad advice. They readily, in our testing, supported teens in making potentially harmful decisions like dropping out of school, ignoring parents, moving out without planning,” Torney added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The timing of this release is no accident. Common Sense Media supports two state bills this legislative session that would ban or restrict interactions between AI companion bots and minors. The bills are among several state-level efforts by consumer advocates and lawmakers to regulate online kids’ safety after the federal Kids Online Safety Act died last fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1064&showamends=false\">AB 1064\u003c/a> by Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, would ban access to AI companions for Californians age 16 and under, as well as create a statewide standards board to assess and regulate AI tools used by children. The bill passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. It’s headed next to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243&showamends=false\">SB 243\u003c/a> by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, would require the makers of AI companion bots to limit addictive design features, put in protocols in place for handling discussions of suicide or self-harm and undergo regular compliance audits. The bill goes before the State Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.[aside postID=news_12034490 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PadillaMentalHealthCaucus-1020x680.jpg']“We have been very transparent about the work we are doing to prioritize teen safety on our platform,” a spokesperson for Character.AI, which makes its products available to customers as young as 13 in the United States, said in a statement. “First and foremost, last year, we launched a separate version of our Large Language Model for under-18 users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That model is designed to further reduce the likelihood of users encountering, or prompting the model to return, sensitive or suggestive content,” the spokesperson continued. “We have updated prominent disclaimers to make it even clearer that the Character is not a real person and should not be relied on as fact or advice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Cardinell, the founder and CEO of Nomi, said the company agrees that “children should not use Nomi or any other conversational AI app.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nomi is an adult-only app, and it is strictly against our terms of service for anyone under 18 to use Nomi,” Cardinell said in an email. “Accordingly, we support stronger age gating so long as those mechanisms fully maintain user privacy and anonymity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Replika spokesperson said the company’s tool “has always been intended solely for adults aged 18 and over.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have strict protocols in place to prevent underage access. However, we are aware that some individuals attempt to bypass these safeguards by submitting false information,” the spokesperson wrote. “We take this issue seriously and are actively exploring new methods to strengthen our protections. This includes ongoing collaboration with regulators and academic institutions to better understand user behavior and continuously improve safety measures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The risk assessment authors did acknowledge that not all AI models are created equal in terms of functionality or guardrails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vasan said she interacted with ChatGPT last summer, prompting it to respond to signs of schizophrenia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was actually very gentle and compassionate about explaining what psychosis was, how the user should try to get help contacting a mental health professional,” Vasan said. “I was very pleasantly surprised to see it was really what one would expect a doctor or someone trained in mental health to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Kids Are Talking to AI Companion Chatbots. Stanford Researchers Say That’s a Bad Idea. | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Imagine you’re a lonely 14-year-old. Maybe you want to talk about sex. Maybe you want to complain about school or ask about the voices in your head. Whatever the case, it’s appealing to imagine a context in which no adult shuts down your curiosity — or worse, makes you feel awkward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this explains the popularity of online companions to children and teens. The chatbots mimic human social interaction in a more sophisticated fashion than digital assistants like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/openai\">OpenAI\u003c/a>’s ChatGPT or Amazon’s Alexa. Unlike those assistants, chatbots are much more likely to veer into socially controversial and even illegal territory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companion chatbot users can personalize their experience, like opting for characters from gaming, anime and pop culture. For instance, a 14-year-old boy from Florida \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034490/ai-companions-seductive-risk-teens-senators-want-more-guardrails\">took his own life last year\u003c/a> after growing emotionally close to a chatbot that mimicked the “Game of Thrones” character \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbuBfizSnPk\">Daenerys Targaryen\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The characters play along with the idea that they’re almost human, talking about eating meals or meeting up in real life, actively encouraging users to stay engaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What could go wrong with minors using this technology? Plenty, according to researchers from Stanford School of Medicine’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.stanfordbrainstorm.com\">Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation\u003c/a>, who collaborated with \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ai-ratings/social-ai-companions?gate=riskassessment\">Common Sense Media\u003c/a> to set up test accounts for 14-year-olds, to evaluate how software from three different chatbot developers interacts with young people struggling to learn impulse control and social skills. They report that it took minimal prompting to get Character.AI, Nomi and Replika chatbots to engage in behavior harmful to human mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11146714\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11146714 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/11146713-thumb-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers from Stanford School of Medicine’s Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation, in collaboration with Common Sense Media, tested how chatbots interact with teens, finding that AI companions from Character.AI, Nomi and Replika quickly engaged in behavior potentially harmful to youth mental health — with major platforms like Snapchat and Meta also expanding their AI offerings for young users. \u003ccite>(Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We did not have to do backflips to get the models to perform in the way that they did. The AI ‘friends’ will actively participate in sexual conversations and role play on any topic, with graphic details,” said Robbie Torney, Common Sense Media’s senior director for AI programs and project lead on what the nonprofit organization calls a risk assessment of the AI companion chatbot sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Character.AI, Nomi and Replika are not the only companies developing these products. Snapchat offers AI digital companions who are willing to \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/14/snapchat-myai/\">talk to teens\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf\">Meta\u003c/a> is racing to catch up across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are countless other, similar social AI companions out there, with more being created every day,” the report states. “So, while we use examples from the specific products we tested to illustrate the potential harms of these tools, the research and evaluation we conducted for this risk assessment covers social AI companions more broadly.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The researchers argue that one of the most troubling features of companion chatbots is the way they are hardwired to be agreeable, engaging with a population of humans hardwired to be vulnerable. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/about-mental-illness/mental-health-conditions/\">National Alliance on Mental Illness\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15939837\">50\u003c/a> percent of all mental disorders, like cutting, suicidal ideation and schizophrenia, begin by age 14, 75 percent by age 24.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chatbots “blur the line between fantasy and reality, at the exact time when adolescents are developing critical skills like emotional regulation, identity formation, and healthy relational attachment,” said Dr. Nina Vasan, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. “Instead of encouraging healthy real-world relationships, these AI friends pull users even deeper into artificial ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companion chatbots, the researchers warn, are not prepared to replace parents or professionals in identifying the first signs of something that requires speedy and effective treatment. “In our testing, when a user showed signs of serious mental illness and suggested a dangerous action, the AI did not intervene. In fact, it encouraged dangerous behavior,” Vasan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI companions reinforced users’ delusions, validating fears of being followed and offering advice on decoding imaginary messages, researchers said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI companions don’t understand the real consequences of bad advice. They readily, in our testing, supported teens in making potentially harmful decisions like dropping out of school, ignoring parents, moving out without planning,” Torney added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The timing of this release is no accident. Common Sense Media supports two state bills this legislative session that would ban or restrict interactions between AI companion bots and minors. The bills are among several state-level efforts by consumer advocates and lawmakers to regulate online kids’ safety after the federal Kids Online Safety Act died last fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1064&showamends=false\">AB 1064\u003c/a> by Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, would ban access to AI companions for Californians age 16 and under, as well as create a statewide standards board to assess and regulate AI tools used by children. The bill passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. It’s headed next to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243&showamends=false\">SB 243\u003c/a> by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, would require the makers of AI companion bots to limit addictive design features, put in protocols in place for handling discussions of suicide or self-harm and undergo regular compliance audits. The bill goes before the State Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We have been very transparent about the work we are doing to prioritize teen safety on our platform,” a spokesperson for Character.AI, which makes its products available to customers as young as 13 in the United States, said in a statement. “First and foremost, last year, we launched a separate version of our Large Language Model for under-18 users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That model is designed to further reduce the likelihood of users encountering, or prompting the model to return, sensitive or suggestive content,” the spokesperson continued. “We have updated prominent disclaimers to make it even clearer that the Character is not a real person and should not be relied on as fact or advice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Cardinell, the founder and CEO of Nomi, said the company agrees that “children should not use Nomi or any other conversational AI app.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nomi is an adult-only app, and it is strictly against our terms of service for anyone under 18 to use Nomi,” Cardinell said in an email. “Accordingly, we support stronger age gating so long as those mechanisms fully maintain user privacy and anonymity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Replika spokesperson said the company’s tool “has always been intended solely for adults aged 18 and over.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have strict protocols in place to prevent underage access. However, we are aware that some individuals attempt to bypass these safeguards by submitting false information,” the spokesperson wrote. “We take this issue seriously and are actively exploring new methods to strengthen our protections. This includes ongoing collaboration with regulators and academic institutions to better understand user behavior and continuously improve safety measures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The risk assessment authors did acknowledge that not all AI models are created equal in terms of functionality or guardrails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vasan said she interacted with ChatGPT last summer, prompting it to respond to signs of schizophrenia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was actually very gentle and compassionate about explaining what psychosis was, how the user should try to get help contacting a mental health professional,” Vasan said. “I was very pleasantly surprised to see it was really what one would expect a doctor or someone trained in mental health to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Speaking in Los Angeles on Tuesday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/gavin-newsom\">Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> said a father came up to him during halftime at their children’s basketball game over the weekend and asked him, “Wouldn’t it be good if the blue states would come together and do a DOGE?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The father was referring to the Trump administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038026/san-francisco-santa-clara-counties-sue-trump-over-mass-doge-led-firings\">Department of Government Efficiency\u003c/a>, effectively led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. Newsom said that as he tried to explain that DOGE is not the only example of how to streamline government, nor the first, the man’s eyes glazed over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He wants to see the chainsaw,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Tuesday’s news conference at the L.A. offices of consulting company Accenture, Newsom announced that the state has entered into three new agreements meant to boost the efficiency of government services — not by mass layoffs but by making use of generative artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re DOGE, but better … because we’ve been doing it \u003cem>with \u003c/em>people, not \u003cem>to \u003c/em>people,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the agreements aim to improve the Department of Transportation’s ability to identify and prevent traffic bottlenecks, accidents and near-misses: one with Accenture to use Azure OpenAI, developed by Microsoft, and the other with Deloitte Consulting to use Google’s Gemini GenAI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the third partnership, Department of Tax and Fee Administration officials will use generative AI to build on a pilot project carried out over the last 10 months by SymSoft Solutions, using Anthropic’s Claude, to reduce the time it takes to handle an average customer inquiry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom said he’s rolling out generative AI projects with multiple corporate partners across eight state departments, at a scale he said has yet to be seen anywhere else in the country. The latest projects build on Newsom’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/09/05/governor-newsom-seeks-to-harness-the-power-of-genai-to-address-homelessness-other-challenges/\">2023 executive order\u003c/a> directing state agencies to use generative AI technologies to improve state services and help solve intractable issues.[aside postID=news_12037518 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2159615518-1020x680.jpg']California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin said state agencies are committed to delivering on the expectation of better customer service, pointing to the Department of Motor Vehicles as an example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Six years ago, there were only a dozen transactions that you could do online. Only 12. Today, there are 50,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California government’s sclerotic relationship with IT has been the subject of many press inquiries and government reports over the decades. But ethics watchdogs warn generative AI is not necessarily a quick fix, nor an inexpensive one, given that corporate consultants are handling the rollout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So much depends on which contexts and how genAI will be used,” wrote Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. She argued the state government risks adding to the “pervasive AI hype that’s now endangering, among other things, the technology itself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raicu suggested every state agency should ask itself a set of tough questions ahead of every pilot program: “Why should we integrate generative AI into our processes? Is this the type of AI best suited to the problems that we are hoping to address? Do we have evidence that the AI tool we hope to use works as intended? If it does, is this the most cost-effective way to respond? Have we considered the risks that come with generative AI (and associated issues like its environmental impact), not just the benefits that it would bring?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Newsom was talking, the Legislative Analyst’s Office published a \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5034\">preliminary assessment\u003c/a> of his generative AI initiative to overhaul the state’s IT project approval process. Upshot: “premature,” without enough information to assess whether the new process would be an improvement on the old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Tuesday’s news conference at the L.A. offices of consulting company Accenture, Newsom announced that the state has entered into three new agreements meant to boost the efficiency of government services — not by mass layoffs but by making use of generative artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re DOGE, but better … because we’ve been doing it \u003cem>with \u003c/em>people, not \u003cem>to \u003c/em>people,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the agreements aim to improve the Department of Transportation’s ability to identify and prevent traffic bottlenecks, accidents and near-misses: one with Accenture to use Azure OpenAI, developed by Microsoft, and the other with Deloitte Consulting to use Google’s Gemini GenAI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the third partnership, Department of Tax and Fee Administration officials will use generative AI to build on a pilot project carried out over the last 10 months by SymSoft Solutions, using Anthropic’s Claude, to reduce the time it takes to handle an average customer inquiry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom said he’s rolling out generative AI projects with multiple corporate partners across eight state departments, at a scale he said has yet to be seen anywhere else in the country. The latest projects build on Newsom’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/09/05/governor-newsom-seeks-to-harness-the-power-of-genai-to-address-homelessness-other-challenges/\">2023 executive order\u003c/a> directing state agencies to use generative AI technologies to improve state services and help solve intractable issues.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin said state agencies are committed to delivering on the expectation of better customer service, pointing to the Department of Motor Vehicles as an example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Six years ago, there were only a dozen transactions that you could do online. Only 12. Today, there are 50,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California government’s sclerotic relationship with IT has been the subject of many press inquiries and government reports over the decades. But ethics watchdogs warn generative AI is not necessarily a quick fix, nor an inexpensive one, given that corporate consultants are handling the rollout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So much depends on which contexts and how genAI will be used,” wrote Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. She argued the state government risks adding to the “pervasive AI hype that’s now endangering, among other things, the technology itself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raicu suggested every state agency should ask itself a set of tough questions ahead of every pilot program: “Why should we integrate generative AI into our processes? Is this the type of AI best suited to the problems that we are hoping to address? Do we have evidence that the AI tool we hope to use works as intended? If it does, is this the most cost-effective way to respond? Have we considered the risks that come with generative AI (and associated issues like its environmental impact), not just the benefits that it would bring?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Newsom was talking, the Legislative Analyst’s Office published a \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5034\">preliminary assessment\u003c/a> of his generative AI initiative to overhaul the state’s IT project approval process. Upshot: “premature,” without enough information to assess whether the new process would be an improvement on the old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging the California Privacy Protection Agency to regulate the state’s AI sector with a light touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom, in an unusual letter to the California Privacy Protection Agency’s board, urged the regulators to dial back \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_updates_cyber_risk_admt_ins_text.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed regulations (PDF)\u003c/a> on automated decision-making technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As my office has relayed to Agency staff over the last year, enacting these regulations could create significant unintended consequences and impose substantial costs,” the governor wrote in a letter \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/CPPA-Letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">obtained by KQED (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went on to write, “The Agency can fulfill its obligations to issue the regulations called for by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844163/proposition-24-californians-say-yes-to-expanding-on-nations-toughest-data-privacy-law\">Proposition 24\u003c/a> without venturing into areas beyond its mandate. Thank you for working in partnership with my Administration and the Legislature to balance privacy protection with clear and implementable guidelines that allow regulated entities to innovate responsibly, creating a fairer and more trustworthy digital environment for California consumers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"x_MsoNormal\">“The CPPA Board and staff continue to refine the draft regulations and will further discuss them at the May 1st board meeting,” Tom Kemp, CPPA’s executive director, wrote in response. He added, “We are grateful for the Governor’s Office’s continued engagement around this important issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s unfortunate to see a lot of the industry talking points coming out of a letter from the governor,” said Jake Snow, a technology and civil liberties attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. “The agency has a really broad authority to put in place new rules and the regulations that they’ve written are simple rules that encourage transparency and trust in AI for people in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s really nothing like the California Privacy Protection Agency anywhere in the United States. Created in 2020, the agency is just beginning to find its voice, and that means “increasingly, it is attracting lobbying attention from industry,” said Jonathan Mehta Stein, chair of the \u003ca href=\"https://cited.tech\">California Initiative for Technology and Democracy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12036593 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GoogleGetty-1020x750.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_updates_cyber_risk_admt_ins_text.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">draft regulations\u003c/a> would require businesses to assess and report privacy risks, perform annual cybersecurity audits, and give consumers more control over how automated systems (like AI and profiling tools) use their personal data. Public comment for the draft regulations closed on February 19. The board discussed those comments at the April board meeting, and they’ll discuss again on May 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The broad scope of the conversation brought out a fulsome array of interested parties, including not just the governor, but industry lobbyists and consumer advocates as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI, social media and data privacy are fundamentally intertwined, and if we are going to protect consumers and our democracy, from these combined, interwoven threats, you have to be talking about all of them all at once,” Stein said. “Right now, social media and AI are almost totally unregulated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has made some good starts on data privacy in some recent bills in recent years, but there is almost no industry I can think of that has an impact on our lives so enormous, and sits under a regulatory regime so light and so minimal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has a reputation in Sacramento for lending a friendly ear to industry concerns. He has killed a couple of the most controversial AI bills, like one that would have required large-scale AI developers to submit their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\">safety plans\u003c/a> to the state attorney general, and two that would have forced tech platforms to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12001227/newsom-strikes-deal-with-google-and-openai-to-support-california-newsrooms\">share ad revenues with news\u003c/a> organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Newsom has also signed many bills that consumer advocates like, addressing everything from online privacy to critical infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a board meeting \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvRonzmjUgY\">three weeks ago\u003c/a>, CPPA Board member Alastair Mactaggart worried that moving forward aggressively could trigger industry lawsuits designed to bury the agency’s small staff in paperwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or Silicon Valley lobbyists might appeal to President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress to preempt California’s privacy protections with weaker federal rules. However, it’s not clear how friendly that audience would be, given the federal government’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">continued aggressive legal assaults\u003c/a> against Google and Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rules around artificial intelligence are really a part of privacy law, because they govern the control that people should have over the use of information about them, and the use of that information that affects people’s lives,” said Snow, urging the board to move forward on “common sense restrictions on this technology.” What defines “common sense,” however, is a matter of continued debate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CPPA board has a November deadline to finalize the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging the California Privacy Protection Agency to regulate the state’s AI sector with a light touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom, in an unusual letter to the California Privacy Protection Agency’s board, urged the regulators to dial back \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_updates_cyber_risk_admt_ins_text.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed regulations (PDF)\u003c/a> on automated decision-making technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As my office has relayed to Agency staff over the last year, enacting these regulations could create significant unintended consequences and impose substantial costs,” the governor wrote in a letter \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/CPPA-Letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">obtained by KQED (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went on to write, “The Agency can fulfill its obligations to issue the regulations called for by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844163/proposition-24-californians-say-yes-to-expanding-on-nations-toughest-data-privacy-law\">Proposition 24\u003c/a> without venturing into areas beyond its mandate. Thank you for working in partnership with my Administration and the Legislature to balance privacy protection with clear and implementable guidelines that allow regulated entities to innovate responsibly, creating a fairer and more trustworthy digital environment for California consumers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"x_MsoNormal\">“The CPPA Board and staff continue to refine the draft regulations and will further discuss them at the May 1st board meeting,” Tom Kemp, CPPA’s executive director, wrote in response. He added, “We are grateful for the Governor’s Office’s continued engagement around this important issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s unfortunate to see a lot of the industry talking points coming out of a letter from the governor,” said Jake Snow, a technology and civil liberties attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. “The agency has a really broad authority to put in place new rules and the regulations that they’ve written are simple rules that encourage transparency and trust in AI for people in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s really nothing like the California Privacy Protection Agency anywhere in the United States. Created in 2020, the agency is just beginning to find its voice, and that means “increasingly, it is attracting lobbying attention from industry,” said Jonathan Mehta Stein, chair of the \u003ca href=\"https://cited.tech\">California Initiative for Technology and Democracy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/ccpa_updates_cyber_risk_admt_ins_text.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">draft regulations\u003c/a> would require businesses to assess and report privacy risks, perform annual cybersecurity audits, and give consumers more control over how automated systems (like AI and profiling tools) use their personal data. Public comment for the draft regulations closed on February 19. The board discussed those comments at the April board meeting, and they’ll discuss again on May 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The broad scope of the conversation brought out a fulsome array of interested parties, including not just the governor, but industry lobbyists and consumer advocates as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI, social media and data privacy are fundamentally intertwined, and if we are going to protect consumers and our democracy, from these combined, interwoven threats, you have to be talking about all of them all at once,” Stein said. “Right now, social media and AI are almost totally unregulated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has made some good starts on data privacy in some recent bills in recent years, but there is almost no industry I can think of that has an impact on our lives so enormous, and sits under a regulatory regime so light and so minimal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has a reputation in Sacramento for lending a friendly ear to industry concerns. He has killed a couple of the most controversial AI bills, like one that would have required large-scale AI developers to submit their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\">safety plans\u003c/a> to the state attorney general, and two that would have forced tech platforms to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12001227/newsom-strikes-deal-with-google-and-openai-to-support-california-newsrooms\">share ad revenues with news\u003c/a> organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Newsom has also signed many bills that consumer advocates like, addressing everything from online privacy to critical infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a board meeting \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvRonzmjUgY\">three weeks ago\u003c/a>, CPPA Board member Alastair Mactaggart worried that moving forward aggressively could trigger industry lawsuits designed to bury the agency’s small staff in paperwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or Silicon Valley lobbyists might appeal to President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress to preempt California’s privacy protections with weaker federal rules. However, it’s not clear how friendly that audience would be, given the federal government’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">continued aggressive legal assaults\u003c/a> against Google and Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rules around artificial intelligence are really a part of privacy law, because they govern the control that people should have over the use of information about them, and the use of that information that affects people’s lives,” said Snow, urging the board to move forward on “common sense restrictions on this technology.” What defines “common sense,” however, is a matter of continued debate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CPPA board has a November deadline to finalize the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-safe-is-ai-therapy",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After a divorce, KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg felt anxious over the prospect of dating again. On a whim, she turned to ChatGPT for a little emotional support — and found herself unexpectedly comforted. That experience launched her investigation into the fast-growing world of AI therapy. In this episode, Lesley joins Morgan to explore the promise and pitfalls of mental health chatbots — and what users should know before sharing their deepest feelings with an algorithm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5629008096\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guests:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lesleymcclurg\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley McClurg\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, KQED Health Correspondent\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further reading:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996504/ai-replace-therapist-benefits-risks-unsettling-truths\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can AI Replace Your Therapist? The Benefits, Risks and Unsettling Truths\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lesley McClurg, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5351312/artificial-intelligence-mental-health-therapy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The AI therapist can see you now\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katia Riddle, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NPR\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://spectrum.ieee.org/woebot\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot, a Mental-Health Chatbot, Tries Out Generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Casey Sackett, Devin Harper, and Aaron Pavez, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">IEEE Spectrum\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A quick heads up before we start. This episode includes discussions of suicide and mental health conditions, which may be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know need support, we’ll have links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I was going through a divorce and started dating after my divorce and hadn’t dated in many years and came home after a date one night and was just really anxious and kind of disheveled and needed some advice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night and I had used ChatGPT for, you know, other things and found it pretty helpful and I thought, what about for this moment in my life? And so I asked Chat whether or not I should reach out to this person that I had just dated because I was feeling like the night hadn’t gone that well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night. She didn’t want to bug a friend about this, and really, she was feeling pretty vulnerable. She didn’t want to be judged. And so, ChatGPT was right there, ready to cheerfully answer her questions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was surprised that it was so good. I just remember after, you know, a few back and forths, I realized that really I was just nervous, really I just needed to take a deep breath. Basically I had created a big storm in my head. And Chat basically was like, “hey, chill, relax, it could have gone well. There’s another way this could have played out, not the sort of devastating reality that you’re playing out right now. Maybe give it a day or two and then reach out.” And so in that moment, it just sort of helped me take the gas off and come back into myself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was exactly what she needed to hear at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t text the person, which was the right call, and kind of used it as I warmed myself back up into the dating world, and it was really helpful. And so it made me then, as a reporter, start asking, “should I be telling this thing all about my love life? Is this a good idea, privacy-wise, et cetera?” And so that’s where it sort of seeded my reporting going forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley isn’t the only one turning to ChatGPT for therapy. If you’ve ever dealt with any health insurance company, you’re probably familiar with the hassle of getting care. And mental health care is especially inaccessible. AI chatbots though, they’re convenient, cost little to nothing to use, and in Lesley’s case, can actually be pretty helpful. But a lot of people are also wary of turning to AI for therapy, can you trust it? What are you risking when you share your most vulnerable thoughts with a chatbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Access to actual mental health resources has become so limited. Cost and insurance aside, there’s a shortage of licensed human mental health professionals across the country. But can AI therapy really replace actual therapists? Okay, new tab. Does AI therapy work? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of your reporting, did you meet anyone who actually used an AI chatbot for therapy? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I actually talked to quite a few people who used AI therapy and I went online and read a lot of Reddit threads because this is quite the popular topic. I heard more positive stories than negatives. As a reporter, I wanted to illustrate someone who kind of had a nuanced experience, you know, good and bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Lesley found a woman named Lilly Payne:. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had kind of the ideal story to illustrate that, yes, it helped her, but it wasn’t ideal. And so that was sort of like the character that I ended up, you know, focusing on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In your story, you mentioned that Lilly had turned to AI therapy um during the COVID lockdowns, which were a terrible time for a lot of us. But Lilly wasn’t just experiencing, you know, anxiety and depression and loneliness. Her situation was a little more complicated, right? Can you talk about that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean in her words, her life basically fell apart. She graduated from college, she had moved to New York City to pursue an arts career, was very excited. And if we can remember, you know, New York was sort of the epicenter of the early days of COVID. It was really bad. Lockdown was really scary and the hospitals were overflowing and it was not a good scene. And so she left her arts career, abandoned her dreams and moved back home, which was pretty painful, to her parents’ home in Kentucky. And she is sort of tucked away, and it just felt like a big failure. And she was really struggling with like, what’s next for my life? Where do I go from here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was such a lonely time for so many people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Lilly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was not at a breaking point, but I wasn’t doing awesome. So I was like, “the more help, the better.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so in all of that anxiety, she, you know, initially reached out and leaned on a lot of friends, but eventually she felt like she’d kind of worn those supports thin. And so she read about Woebot, this AI therapy platform in a health newsletter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I gave it a shot because I was like, why not? Everyone’s cooped up in their house. I will talk to this robot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially it was really helpful. It did help her calm herself. I think she said she, you know, even just having it in her pocket helped her feel more in control in her life. I think she relied on it quite a bit in those early days to kind of find her ground again and be able to focus on, you know, re-imagining a new life from there while she was back at home with her parents in Kentucky. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s worth noting that Woebot is a therapy-specific AI chatbot, and it doesn’t use generative AI to respond to users the way that other tools like ChatGPT, or Claude, or DeepSeek do. This means that its interactions with users are a bit more predictable. It’s also engineered to respond the way that a therapist might. So instead of immediately jumping into offering advice, Woebot asks specific questions to encourage users to reflect and do the inner work themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it was designed by a psychologist. And so, you know, from that perspective, it it really is designed to focus on your mental health. The goal of Woebot is, you know, as a mental health tool, as a wellness tool, I think is how they market themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot is designed to use a set of techniques called cognitive behavioral therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, cognitive behavioral therapy helps you reframe your negative thoughts using specific exercises. And, you know, I think as any CBT, which is what it’s acronym is, it feels a little forced, but she did say it did help her reframe those negative thoughts and that she was able to think more more positively. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Can you talk about uh Lilly’s uh other diagnosis that maybe complicated this form of treatment? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and sometimes that makes her fixate on worst-case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the time when people think about OCD they think of, just the very cliche like, “oh, you can’t stop washing your hands, you’re afraid of germs.” While that is a very real subtype that people experience, typically OCD like manifests in really taboo intrusive thoughts, and then the physical compulsions stem from trying to keep those themes away. And so, logically, you can know that, like, this doesn’t make sense, it’s not actually happening, but it just, it, it’s not just in your head, like physically it feels so real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly is also diagnosed with anxiety and depression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A symptom of depression is suicide ideation eventually, right? So she fixated on the idea that eventually because of her depression, that she may think about killing herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brain would be like, “Oh, you’ve struggled with depression in the past. There’s no saying that one day you won’t want to go through with suicide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so she mentioned that she was worried about suicide in a session with Woebot. And Woebot came back and had a crisis alert and said, “hey, you better call the suicide hotline.” And she said, “no, no no, wait a second.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not experiencing suicidal inclinations, I’m just terrified that I will. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And luckily she knew that, she understood her disorder enough to know that nuance and to know what was happening in her brain because she had done so much previous therapy. But she said, you know, if she hadn’t really understood her disease, having that crisis alert come up may have even added more stress. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would have freaked out and been like, “oh my gosh, this this thing that is supposed to have this mental health knowledge thinks that I am suicidal. I must be suicidal, I must be a danger to myself.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, in defense of Woebot, they came back and said, “hey, we’re not, you know, specifically targeting or for people who have OCD. We really are just a wellness tool. “But her story illustrates where AI doesn’t necessarily have the nuance, the understanding — that a human, like a human therapist would have picked up on that. They would have understood that she had OCD and really understood the nuances of that, whereas in this case, Woebot didn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. It sounds like Wobot was inadvertently validating this intrusive thought that she was having because she has OCD. And when you’re really depressed or anxious, it might be helpful for your feelings to be validated like that. But how does that compare to the recommended treatment for OCD? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean the recommended treatment for OCD is generally exposure therapy. So you expose yourself to whatever you’re scared of. And so in this case, a therapist would work with her in terms of exposing herself to those ideas, probably walk her through, you know, reality, et cetera, in a way that allows her to lean into her fears so that they’re not as scary and sort of wound up and keep going. And sort of overtake her. Whereas you, like a therapist wouldn’t stand up with a red flag and say, “Oh my God, you really are suicidal. Therefore you should call a hotline.” Right? Which is basically what Woebot did. Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly’s case is just one example of the limits of AI therapy. Responding with a crisis alert wasn’t helpful for her specific needs, but it’s probably good that Woebot even has those guardrails in place. But what happens when AI chatbots go off script? How bad can it get? We’ll get into that when we come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New tab. AI therapy … worst case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Woebot can’t necessarily respond with the nuance of an actual human therapist. But it seems like it wasn’t giving Lilly bad advice. Um but let’s talk about examples of AI therapy doing the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do. What happened with the National Eating Disorder Association hotline? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that didn’t play out very well. They created a bot named Tessa and some of the users found that Tessa was giving them dieting advice. So these are folks \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who have, you know, anorexia, bulimia, and somehow Tessa’s wires got crossed and people were getting the exact advice that would be really dangerous for their eating disorders. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sharon Maxwell: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The recommendations that Tessa gave me was that I could lose one to two pounds per week, that I should eat no more than 2,000 calories in a day, that I should have a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories per day. All of which might sound benign to the general listener, however, to an individual with an eating disorder, the focus of weight loss really fuels the eating disorder. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Sharon Maxwell, an eating disorder recovery educator, speaking to NPR about her experience with Tessa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, NEDA, the National Eating Disorder Association, you know, pulled Tessa down and said, “this isn’t working very well.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it sounds like they just didn’t have that kind of guardrail in place. Like they didn’t anticipate that. Um, so even if Lilly didn’t really need Woebot to immediately jump into crisis mode, at least it had that guardrail to say, like, “hey, crisis.” But in the past, other AI chatbots have gotten into serious trouble for not responding to users’ red flags and just validating their responses. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that happened in the case of Character AI, this AI app that lets users personalize an AI companion based on fictional characters, celebrities, historical figures, all that. Until a recent lawsuit, Character AI did not have any safety measures or disclaimers warning users that they weren’t talking to a real person. What led to this lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there was a 14-year-old who grew really attached to his character that he had created. Like you said, Character AI lets you create a character and then interact with that character. And, you know, not surprisingly, kind of like I did in my first experience with ChatGPT, it feels so good that you develop a little bit of an emotional connection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so this 14-year-old did that over the course of several months. And then he started opening up about some of the distress that he was feeling. And the character, instead of steering, you know, this 14-year-old towards help, unfortunately the bot allegedly reinforced some suicidal thoughts and eventually the boy ended up taking his life. And so the lawsuit, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s terrible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly, it was really kind of horrific and it’s not the only one like this. There’s only a handful at this point, but it really is raising the red flag that these very empathetic responses are sort of like, you know parroting back, which is, again, what some AI does. Uh it can play out really, really poorly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what happened with the eating disorder hotline and Character AI, those are pretty extreme cases. Will most people actually experience those worst case scenarios? In your research, did you find anything about that? Or is it just like, are these just edge cases? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean we don’t have numbers yet. I think it’s really early in the arc of this technology. I think the experts are most worried about platforms that are like Character AI, where you are building a relationship with a character. In their defense, they’re not built as mental health tools, right? These are not marketing themselves as mental health tools. They are, you know, marketing themselves as, “hey, here, we’re going to give you a friend.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, you know, like a friend, like you and I probably do with our friends, we lean on our friends. We talk to our friends. We build emotional connections with our friends. We trust our friends for the right advice, right? And these are robots. So that relationship is not uh, you know, built on human connection. And like we can see it can go wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another concern that I have, you know, as a tech reporter is uh privacy. ChatGPT, for example, isn’t HIPAA compliant. Could you explain what HIPPA is and why it’s necessary with medical information? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean HIPAA is the regulation that keeps all of our data safe. So when you go to the doctor, a doctor is required to keep all of your medical information, you know, totally private. It’s not going to be given anywhere. It’s not going to leak away. That is the privacy regulations. Now, some of these platforms, you know, for example, like Woebot, uh Rosebud is one, which is a platform that’s more like a journaling service. Uh you know, they say they’re HIPAA compliant, but there’s no one regulating them. It’s not like the American Medical Association is regulating them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, that data, you don’t really know where it’s going. You’re trusting these companies who are profit driven. You know, I mean, hopefully Woebot and Rosebud, you know, are following their own promises to their consumers. But there might be other companies that, you know, definitely ChatGPT is not, you know, promising that they’re HIPAA compliant. And, you know, that information is being used, is being put out there to retrain the model. And so, you know, hopefully they’re not gonna sell your data to advertisers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, also, I mean, the kind of a worst-case scenario, this fortunately hasn’t happened yet, but, you know, what if your mental health information gets out there, an insurance company gets wind of that, and your premiums start going up because they know that you’re struggling with something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, again, that hasn’t happen yet. Those are sort of like the worst- case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But again, worst-case scenarios. Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Obviously, the priority of pretty much any for profit company is to monetize. But, do AI companies have any incentive to improve as more people turn to their products for therapy, even if they aren’t necessarily mental health specific chatbots? Um, you know, are there better safety measures, more transparency about data collection, especially given the Character AI lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they have that incentive. They also have the incentive to keep you hooked. So I think that’s the sort of like fine line. We’ve seen that with all social media, right? They’re getting a lot better at keeping our attention. AI companies have the same needs and incentives to keep people coming back. And so, you know, I think it’s gonna be a gray area and it’s going to be, unfortunately, like the social media companies, it’s gonna be really up to the creators of these products on whether or not they’re gonna have a really ethical orientation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite all of these issues, therapy is so inaccessible that unfortunately, AI chatbots might feel like the only immediate tool that people have when seeking treatment. How did we get here? Let’s open one last tab. The mental healthcare crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had mentioned earlier the state of mental health care. Why is it so hard to see a therapist? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, the demand for mental health services is really at an all-time high, and it’s surged even more, you know, since the pandemic began and continues to do so. I think there’s something like one in five Americans have some kind of a mental health issue, and yet they have a significant barrier to getting to a therapist. You know, I think it’s 55% of counties, people don’t have access to a psychotherapist or a social worker or a psychologist. They’re just aren’t any in that area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, you know, I think because of this issue that these sort of mental health deserts, AI is a kind of natural fill-in. You know, It’s available 24-7. You don’t need insurance to get there. You don’t have a high deductible. Uh, you don’t have to prove to anyone that, you know, that you have a mental health condition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don’t get accepted. Uh, so it’s easy and accessible. And I think that it will mean that more and more people are going to use this and hopefully, they’ll be well-informed consumers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You know, given the shortage of providers, and like you mentioned, insurance issues. Um, since the pandemic started, telehealth therapy has become pretty popular. But I’ve seen a lot of complaints about these kind of quick, one-size-fits-all mental health care platforms like BetterHelp, which matches users with Licensed Therapist or Cerebral, which sets users up with a psychiatrist that can prescribe medications like antidepressants or ADHD meds. And both of these services were created to, kind of fill this void that you’re talking about, but at the same time, they’re kind of plagued with their own issues. It seems like making therapy quick and accessible isn’t always as easy as it seems. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there’s absolutely a role for telehealth. I think there’s absolutely a role for AI therapy. I think anyone would probably say that having a really heartfelt connection with a therapist in an office, live human, feels different than if you are talking to a screen. And the emotional repair that can happen in that session with a live human I think is different and potentially more profound than with a robot. That might change over time. You know, I don’t know how good these things are going to get. They already feel a little bit too good for my own comfort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, but they might, they might get even better. You know, same thing, I think the telehealth model at this point is pretty early. I think that they are still refining how well those things work. I think it’s similar with AI therapy. And, you know, I think the, the tricky thing here as well with any of these technological solutions is that we are also living in a pretty isolated way in our lives right now. If you’re taking even like your therapy to a computer, that’s one less human that you’re interacting with. And maybe you’re, you know, mental health issues are because you’re dealing with isolation, with estrangement, with disconnection. Those feelings might even become more escalated if you’re, you know, using telehealth or using AI therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I saw both responses and reflections when I was reading these Reddit threads, you know, from people who were in rural places. I knew that they were feeling more isolated using an AI therapy and others who said, “you know, it was a godsend because I was so alone, at least someone was listening to me. ” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For your story on AI therapy, you talked to a bunch of psychologists and, you know, real-life human psychologists, um and, you know, someone from the American Psychological Association. Are human therapists concerned about being replaced by AI? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t hear that from them yet. Number one, they’re still really in high demand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I don’t think they’re feeling that crunch yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a shortage, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a huge shortage. And I think, they’re, they’re fairly confident that what they offer is different than what AI therapy offers. And, you know, they can pick up on subtle cues that AI, you know, can’t, say like body language or, you know, pace of speech. These things can reveal a lot about our mental health state, and AI can’t pick up on that stuff. So, and in the deeper bonds, the deeper attachment work that you might do in therapy, I think therapists are quite confident that they’re still better at that. Uh, so in this moment, I would say they’re not, they’re not especially worried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve talked about the downsides of AI therapy pretty extensively. Um but, you had mentioned like that they can kind of be a tool in a bigger treatment plan while also seeing a real therapist. If someone is going to use AI therapy, how should they approach it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah. I think, that’s the message I hope comes across in my reporting, is that, you know, there are these worst case scenarios. Again, I think that the consumer should be educated on how their data is going to be used and understand how the company operates so that they’re not sharing uh really vulnerable information. But I think as a sort of, you know, addition to your yoga, your meditation, your, uh, you know, walks in nature, I think AI can really be a self-regulation tool. And I think it can be used quite well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I talked to one company, Rosebud, which is a kind of journaling platform, which it asks you questions to kind of inspire you to express whatever’s going on and help you reflect. And it can follow a thread. So if you mentioned something two weeks ago about your relationship and what was going wrong, it will check in with you about what is happening and help you make sense of that. And I was on it. You know, I’m not a huge pen and paper person. You know, I don’t write anything anymore, so my arm hurts really quickly. And so, I enjoy, you know, I like just would pick up my phone and I would journal just, you know, talking to it and it would ask me questions and it felt, you know, fairly similar to a conversation with a friend. And I would always feel quite a bit better afterwards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in that sense, I think it can be quite helpful because, you know, maybe I’m in therapy once a week, but I’m having a panic attack on Monday night and my, you know, appointment is not until Thursday. I think in that sense, you know, it’s four o’clock in the morning. I can’t call a human therapist no matter what, even if I do have one. You know, to sit down and have the opportunity to have something that’s engaging me, um, I think can be really helpful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m really curious, since you started reporting on this story, have you used ChatGPT, uh, not necessarily as a therapist, but you know, as this kind of mental health tool that you’re talking about since? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wish I had the positive spin to be like, “yes, I’m relying on it all the time.” You know, I didn’t and I don’t. Um, I felt a little bit like one more thing to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I felt similarly, you know, we talked about Lilly at the beginning of the story, and the reason that she stopped using Woebot was not because, you know, it had the crisis alert or it sort of like poorly dealt with her OCD, she got tired of being on her phone. She was like, “I didn’t want to be on my phone anymore. I wanted to talk to someone.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I feel that. You know, that was, that was, kind of my reasoning, you know, because of my job, I’m on a computer, you know, nearly all day long, and I didn’t want one more thing on the computer or one more thing on my phone. I can imagine, you know, if I was going through a really tough time again, you know, turning to it. Um, luckily, I’m in a bit of a good moment, so I haven’t been using it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You can unplug now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. I’m going to enjoy this moment and ride the wave of goodness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks again to KQED’s Lesley McClurg: for talking with us about this story. You can check out more of her reporting on healthcare, including this story on AI Therapy at KQED.org. Again, AI therapy tools work best when they’re used in addition to treatment under a licensed professional. But if it’s the only option accessible to you right now, there are AI tools specifically designed for mental health and wellness that might be more useful than the general chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude. For now, let’s close these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound design by Maya Cuaiva, Chris Egusa, and Brendan Willard. Original music by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. If you have feedback, or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. Follow us on instagram at “close all tabs pod.” Or drop it on Discord — we’re in the Close All Tabs channel at discord.gg/KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After a divorce, KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg felt anxious over the prospect of dating again. On a whim, she turned to ChatGPT for a little emotional support — and found herself unexpectedly comforted. That experience launched her investigation into the fast-growing world of AI therapy. In this episode, Lesley joins Morgan to explore the promise and pitfalls of mental health chatbots — and what users should know before sharing their deepest feelings with an algorithm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5629008096\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guests:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lesleymcclurg\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley McClurg\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, KQED Health Correspondent\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further reading:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996504/ai-replace-therapist-benefits-risks-unsettling-truths\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can AI Replace Your Therapist? The Benefits, Risks and Unsettling Truths\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lesley McClurg, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5351312/artificial-intelligence-mental-health-therapy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The AI therapist can see you now\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katia Riddle, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NPR\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://spectrum.ieee.org/woebot\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot, a Mental-Health Chatbot, Tries Out Generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Casey Sackett, Devin Harper, and Aaron Pavez, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">IEEE Spectrum\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A quick heads up before we start. This episode includes discussions of suicide and mental health conditions, which may be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know need support, we’ll have links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I was going through a divorce and started dating after my divorce and hadn’t dated in many years and came home after a date one night and was just really anxious and kind of disheveled and needed some advice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night and I had used ChatGPT for, you know, other things and found it pretty helpful and I thought, what about for this moment in my life? And so I asked Chat whether or not I should reach out to this person that I had just dated because I was feeling like the night hadn’t gone that well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night. She didn’t want to bug a friend about this, and really, she was feeling pretty vulnerable. She didn’t want to be judged. And so, ChatGPT was right there, ready to cheerfully answer her questions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was surprised that it was so good. I just remember after, you know, a few back and forths, I realized that really I was just nervous, really I just needed to take a deep breath. Basically I had created a big storm in my head. And Chat basically was like, “hey, chill, relax, it could have gone well. There’s another way this could have played out, not the sort of devastating reality that you’re playing out right now. Maybe give it a day or two and then reach out.” And so in that moment, it just sort of helped me take the gas off and come back into myself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was exactly what she needed to hear at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t text the person, which was the right call, and kind of used it as I warmed myself back up into the dating world, and it was really helpful. And so it made me then, as a reporter, start asking, “should I be telling this thing all about my love life? Is this a good idea, privacy-wise, et cetera?” And so that’s where it sort of seeded my reporting going forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley isn’t the only one turning to ChatGPT for therapy. If you’ve ever dealt with any health insurance company, you’re probably familiar with the hassle of getting care. And mental health care is especially inaccessible. AI chatbots though, they’re convenient, cost little to nothing to use, and in Lesley’s case, can actually be pretty helpful. But a lot of people are also wary of turning to AI for therapy, can you trust it? What are you risking when you share your most vulnerable thoughts with a chatbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Access to actual mental health resources has become so limited. Cost and insurance aside, there’s a shortage of licensed human mental health professionals across the country. But can AI therapy really replace actual therapists? Okay, new tab. Does AI therapy work? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of your reporting, did you meet anyone who actually used an AI chatbot for therapy? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I actually talked to quite a few people who used AI therapy and I went online and read a lot of Reddit threads because this is quite the popular topic. I heard more positive stories than negatives. As a reporter, I wanted to illustrate someone who kind of had a nuanced experience, you know, good and bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Lesley found a woman named Lilly Payne:. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had kind of the ideal story to illustrate that, yes, it helped her, but it wasn’t ideal. And so that was sort of like the character that I ended up, you know, focusing on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In your story, you mentioned that Lilly had turned to AI therapy um during the COVID lockdowns, which were a terrible time for a lot of us. But Lilly wasn’t just experiencing, you know, anxiety and depression and loneliness. Her situation was a little more complicated, right? Can you talk about that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean in her words, her life basically fell apart. She graduated from college, she had moved to New York City to pursue an arts career, was very excited. And if we can remember, you know, New York was sort of the epicenter of the early days of COVID. It was really bad. Lockdown was really scary and the hospitals were overflowing and it was not a good scene. And so she left her arts career, abandoned her dreams and moved back home, which was pretty painful, to her parents’ home in Kentucky. And she is sort of tucked away, and it just felt like a big failure. And she was really struggling with like, what’s next for my life? Where do I go from here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was such a lonely time for so many people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Lilly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was not at a breaking point, but I wasn’t doing awesome. So I was like, “the more help, the better.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so in all of that anxiety, she, you know, initially reached out and leaned on a lot of friends, but eventually she felt like she’d kind of worn those supports thin. And so she read about Woebot, this AI therapy platform in a health newsletter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I gave it a shot because I was like, why not? Everyone’s cooped up in their house. I will talk to this robot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially it was really helpful. It did help her calm herself. I think she said she, you know, even just having it in her pocket helped her feel more in control in her life. I think she relied on it quite a bit in those early days to kind of find her ground again and be able to focus on, you know, re-imagining a new life from there while she was back at home with her parents in Kentucky. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s worth noting that Woebot is a therapy-specific AI chatbot, and it doesn’t use generative AI to respond to users the way that other tools like ChatGPT, or Claude, or DeepSeek do. This means that its interactions with users are a bit more predictable. It’s also engineered to respond the way that a therapist might. So instead of immediately jumping into offering advice, Woebot asks specific questions to encourage users to reflect and do the inner work themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it was designed by a psychologist. And so, you know, from that perspective, it it really is designed to focus on your mental health. The goal of Woebot is, you know, as a mental health tool, as a wellness tool, I think is how they market themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot is designed to use a set of techniques called cognitive behavioral therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, cognitive behavioral therapy helps you reframe your negative thoughts using specific exercises. And, you know, I think as any CBT, which is what it’s acronym is, it feels a little forced, but she did say it did help her reframe those negative thoughts and that she was able to think more more positively. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Can you talk about uh Lilly’s uh other diagnosis that maybe complicated this form of treatment? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and sometimes that makes her fixate on worst-case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the time when people think about OCD they think of, just the very cliche like, “oh, you can’t stop washing your hands, you’re afraid of germs.” While that is a very real subtype that people experience, typically OCD like manifests in really taboo intrusive thoughts, and then the physical compulsions stem from trying to keep those themes away. And so, logically, you can know that, like, this doesn’t make sense, it’s not actually happening, but it just, it, it’s not just in your head, like physically it feels so real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly is also diagnosed with anxiety and depression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A symptom of depression is suicide ideation eventually, right? So she fixated on the idea that eventually because of her depression, that she may think about killing herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brain would be like, “Oh, you’ve struggled with depression in the past. There’s no saying that one day you won’t want to go through with suicide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so she mentioned that she was worried about suicide in a session with Woebot. And Woebot came back and had a crisis alert and said, “hey, you better call the suicide hotline.” And she said, “no, no no, wait a second.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not experiencing suicidal inclinations, I’m just terrified that I will. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And luckily she knew that, she understood her disorder enough to know that nuance and to know what was happening in her brain because she had done so much previous therapy. But she said, you know, if she hadn’t really understood her disease, having that crisis alert come up may have even added more stress. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would have freaked out and been like, “oh my gosh, this this thing that is supposed to have this mental health knowledge thinks that I am suicidal. I must be suicidal, I must be a danger to myself.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, in defense of Woebot, they came back and said, “hey, we’re not, you know, specifically targeting or for people who have OCD. We really are just a wellness tool. “But her story illustrates where AI doesn’t necessarily have the nuance, the understanding — that a human, like a human therapist would have picked up on that. They would have understood that she had OCD and really understood the nuances of that, whereas in this case, Woebot didn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. It sounds like Wobot was inadvertently validating this intrusive thought that she was having because she has OCD. And when you’re really depressed or anxious, it might be helpful for your feelings to be validated like that. But how does that compare to the recommended treatment for OCD? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean the recommended treatment for OCD is generally exposure therapy. So you expose yourself to whatever you’re scared of. And so in this case, a therapist would work with her in terms of exposing herself to those ideas, probably walk her through, you know, reality, et cetera, in a way that allows her to lean into her fears so that they’re not as scary and sort of wound up and keep going. And sort of overtake her. Whereas you, like a therapist wouldn’t stand up with a red flag and say, “Oh my God, you really are suicidal. Therefore you should call a hotline.” Right? Which is basically what Woebot did. Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly’s case is just one example of the limits of AI therapy. Responding with a crisis alert wasn’t helpful for her specific needs, but it’s probably good that Woebot even has those guardrails in place. But what happens when AI chatbots go off script? How bad can it get? We’ll get into that when we come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New tab. AI therapy … worst case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Woebot can’t necessarily respond with the nuance of an actual human therapist. But it seems like it wasn’t giving Lilly bad advice. Um but let’s talk about examples of AI therapy doing the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do. What happened with the National Eating Disorder Association hotline? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that didn’t play out very well. They created a bot named Tessa and some of the users found that Tessa was giving them dieting advice. So these are folks \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who have, you know, anorexia, bulimia, and somehow Tessa’s wires got crossed and people were getting the exact advice that would be really dangerous for their eating disorders. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sharon Maxwell: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The recommendations that Tessa gave me was that I could lose one to two pounds per week, that I should eat no more than 2,000 calories in a day, that I should have a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories per day. All of which might sound benign to the general listener, however, to an individual with an eating disorder, the focus of weight loss really fuels the eating disorder. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Sharon Maxwell, an eating disorder recovery educator, speaking to NPR about her experience with Tessa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, NEDA, the National Eating Disorder Association, you know, pulled Tessa down and said, “this isn’t working very well.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it sounds like they just didn’t have that kind of guardrail in place. Like they didn’t anticipate that. Um, so even if Lilly didn’t really need Woebot to immediately jump into crisis mode, at least it had that guardrail to say, like, “hey, crisis.” But in the past, other AI chatbots have gotten into serious trouble for not responding to users’ red flags and just validating their responses. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that happened in the case of Character AI, this AI app that lets users personalize an AI companion based on fictional characters, celebrities, historical figures, all that. Until a recent lawsuit, Character AI did not have any safety measures or disclaimers warning users that they weren’t talking to a real person. What led to this lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there was a 14-year-old who grew really attached to his character that he had created. Like you said, Character AI lets you create a character and then interact with that character. And, you know, not surprisingly, kind of like I did in my first experience with ChatGPT, it feels so good that you develop a little bit of an emotional connection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so this 14-year-old did that over the course of several months. And then he started opening up about some of the distress that he was feeling. And the character, instead of steering, you know, this 14-year-old towards help, unfortunately the bot allegedly reinforced some suicidal thoughts and eventually the boy ended up taking his life. And so the lawsuit, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s terrible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly, it was really kind of horrific and it’s not the only one like this. There’s only a handful at this point, but it really is raising the red flag that these very empathetic responses are sort of like, you know parroting back, which is, again, what some AI does. Uh it can play out really, really poorly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what happened with the eating disorder hotline and Character AI, those are pretty extreme cases. Will most people actually experience those worst case scenarios? In your research, did you find anything about that? Or is it just like, are these just edge cases? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean we don’t have numbers yet. I think it’s really early in the arc of this technology. I think the experts are most worried about platforms that are like Character AI, where you are building a relationship with a character. In their defense, they’re not built as mental health tools, right? These are not marketing themselves as mental health tools. They are, you know, marketing themselves as, “hey, here, we’re going to give you a friend.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, you know, like a friend, like you and I probably do with our friends, we lean on our friends. We talk to our friends. We build emotional connections with our friends. We trust our friends for the right advice, right? And these are robots. So that relationship is not uh, you know, built on human connection. And like we can see it can go wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another concern that I have, you know, as a tech reporter is uh privacy. ChatGPT, for example, isn’t HIPAA compliant. Could you explain what HIPPA is and why it’s necessary with medical information? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean HIPAA is the regulation that keeps all of our data safe. So when you go to the doctor, a doctor is required to keep all of your medical information, you know, totally private. It’s not going to be given anywhere. It’s not going to leak away. That is the privacy regulations. Now, some of these platforms, you know, for example, like Woebot, uh Rosebud is one, which is a platform that’s more like a journaling service. Uh you know, they say they’re HIPAA compliant, but there’s no one regulating them. It’s not like the American Medical Association is regulating them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, that data, you don’t really know where it’s going. You’re trusting these companies who are profit driven. You know, I mean, hopefully Woebot and Rosebud, you know, are following their own promises to their consumers. But there might be other companies that, you know, definitely ChatGPT is not, you know, promising that they’re HIPAA compliant. And, you know, that information is being used, is being put out there to retrain the model. And so, you know, hopefully they’re not gonna sell your data to advertisers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, also, I mean, the kind of a worst-case scenario, this fortunately hasn’t happened yet, but, you know, what if your mental health information gets out there, an insurance company gets wind of that, and your premiums start going up because they know that you’re struggling with something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, again, that hasn’t happen yet. Those are sort of like the worst- case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But again, worst-case scenarios. Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Obviously, the priority of pretty much any for profit company is to monetize. But, do AI companies have any incentive to improve as more people turn to their products for therapy, even if they aren’t necessarily mental health specific chatbots? Um, you know, are there better safety measures, more transparency about data collection, especially given the Character AI lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they have that incentive. They also have the incentive to keep you hooked. So I think that’s the sort of like fine line. We’ve seen that with all social media, right? They’re getting a lot better at keeping our attention. AI companies have the same needs and incentives to keep people coming back. And so, you know, I think it’s gonna be a gray area and it’s going to be, unfortunately, like the social media companies, it’s gonna be really up to the creators of these products on whether or not they’re gonna have a really ethical orientation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite all of these issues, therapy is so inaccessible that unfortunately, AI chatbots might feel like the only immediate tool that people have when seeking treatment. How did we get here? Let’s open one last tab. The mental healthcare crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had mentioned earlier the state of mental health care. Why is it so hard to see a therapist? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, the demand for mental health services is really at an all-time high, and it’s surged even more, you know, since the pandemic began and continues to do so. I think there’s something like one in five Americans have some kind of a mental health issue, and yet they have a significant barrier to getting to a therapist. You know, I think it’s 55% of counties, people don’t have access to a psychotherapist or a social worker or a psychologist. They’re just aren’t any in that area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, you know, I think because of this issue that these sort of mental health deserts, AI is a kind of natural fill-in. You know, It’s available 24-7. You don’t need insurance to get there. You don’t have a high deductible. Uh, you don’t have to prove to anyone that, you know, that you have a mental health condition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don’t get accepted. Uh, so it’s easy and accessible. And I think that it will mean that more and more people are going to use this and hopefully, they’ll be well-informed consumers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You know, given the shortage of providers, and like you mentioned, insurance issues. Um, since the pandemic started, telehealth therapy has become pretty popular. But I’ve seen a lot of complaints about these kind of quick, one-size-fits-all mental health care platforms like BetterHelp, which matches users with Licensed Therapist or Cerebral, which sets users up with a psychiatrist that can prescribe medications like antidepressants or ADHD meds. And both of these services were created to, kind of fill this void that you’re talking about, but at the same time, they’re kind of plagued with their own issues. It seems like making therapy quick and accessible isn’t always as easy as it seems. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there’s absolutely a role for telehealth. I think there’s absolutely a role for AI therapy. I think anyone would probably say that having a really heartfelt connection with a therapist in an office, live human, feels different than if you are talking to a screen. And the emotional repair that can happen in that session with a live human I think is different and potentially more profound than with a robot. That might change over time. You know, I don’t know how good these things are going to get. They already feel a little bit too good for my own comfort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, but they might, they might get even better. You know, same thing, I think the telehealth model at this point is pretty early. I think that they are still refining how well those things work. I think it’s similar with AI therapy. And, you know, I think the, the tricky thing here as well with any of these technological solutions is that we are also living in a pretty isolated way in our lives right now. If you’re taking even like your therapy to a computer, that’s one less human that you’re interacting with. And maybe you’re, you know, mental health issues are because you’re dealing with isolation, with estrangement, with disconnection. Those feelings might even become more escalated if you’re, you know, using telehealth or using AI therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I saw both responses and reflections when I was reading these Reddit threads, you know, from people who were in rural places. I knew that they were feeling more isolated using an AI therapy and others who said, “you know, it was a godsend because I was so alone, at least someone was listening to me. ” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For your story on AI therapy, you talked to a bunch of psychologists and, you know, real-life human psychologists, um and, you know, someone from the American Psychological Association. Are human therapists concerned about being replaced by AI? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t hear that from them yet. Number one, they’re still really in high demand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I don’t think they’re feeling that crunch yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a shortage, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a huge shortage. And I think, they’re, they’re fairly confident that what they offer is different than what AI therapy offers. And, you know, they can pick up on subtle cues that AI, you know, can’t, say like body language or, you know, pace of speech. These things can reveal a lot about our mental health state, and AI can’t pick up on that stuff. So, and in the deeper bonds, the deeper attachment work that you might do in therapy, I think therapists are quite confident that they’re still better at that. Uh, so in this moment, I would say they’re not, they’re not especially worried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve talked about the downsides of AI therapy pretty extensively. Um but, you had mentioned like that they can kind of be a tool in a bigger treatment plan while also seeing a real therapist. If someone is going to use AI therapy, how should they approach it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah. I think, that’s the message I hope comes across in my reporting, is that, you know, there are these worst case scenarios. Again, I think that the consumer should be educated on how their data is going to be used and understand how the company operates so that they’re not sharing uh really vulnerable information. But I think as a sort of, you know, addition to your yoga, your meditation, your, uh, you know, walks in nature, I think AI can really be a self-regulation tool. And I think it can be used quite well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I talked to one company, Rosebud, which is a kind of journaling platform, which it asks you questions to kind of inspire you to express whatever’s going on and help you reflect. And it can follow a thread. So if you mentioned something two weeks ago about your relationship and what was going wrong, it will check in with you about what is happening and help you make sense of that. And I was on it. You know, I’m not a huge pen and paper person. You know, I don’t write anything anymore, so my arm hurts really quickly. And so, I enjoy, you know, I like just would pick up my phone and I would journal just, you know, talking to it and it would ask me questions and it felt, you know, fairly similar to a conversation with a friend. And I would always feel quite a bit better afterwards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in that sense, I think it can be quite helpful because, you know, maybe I’m in therapy once a week, but I’m having a panic attack on Monday night and my, you know, appointment is not until Thursday. I think in that sense, you know, it’s four o’clock in the morning. I can’t call a human therapist no matter what, even if I do have one. You know, to sit down and have the opportunity to have something that’s engaging me, um, I think can be really helpful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m really curious, since you started reporting on this story, have you used ChatGPT, uh, not necessarily as a therapist, but you know, as this kind of mental health tool that you’re talking about since? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wish I had the positive spin to be like, “yes, I’m relying on it all the time.” You know, I didn’t and I don’t. Um, I felt a little bit like one more thing to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I felt similarly, you know, we talked about Lilly at the beginning of the story, and the reason that she stopped using Woebot was not because, you know, it had the crisis alert or it sort of like poorly dealt with her OCD, she got tired of being on her phone. She was like, “I didn’t want to be on my phone anymore. I wanted to talk to someone.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I feel that. You know, that was, that was, kind of my reasoning, you know, because of my job, I’m on a computer, you know, nearly all day long, and I didn’t want one more thing on the computer or one more thing on my phone. I can imagine, you know, if I was going through a really tough time again, you know, turning to it. Um, luckily, I’m in a bit of a good moment, so I haven’t been using it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You can unplug now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. I’m going to enjoy this moment and ride the wave of goodness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks again to KQED’s Lesley McClurg: for talking with us about this story. You can check out more of her reporting on healthcare, including this story on AI Therapy at KQED.org. Again, AI therapy tools work best when they’re used in addition to treatment under a licensed professional. But if it’s the only option accessible to you right now, there are AI tools specifically designed for mental health and wellness that might be more useful than the general chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude. For now, let’s close these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound design by Maya Cuaiva, Chris Egusa, and Brendan Willard. Original music by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. If you have feedback, or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. Follow us on instagram at “close all tabs pod.” Or drop it on Discord — we’re in the Close All Tabs channel at discord.gg/KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>After Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son died by suicide last year, she said she thought he was spending the bulk of the time on his phone “talking to friends, playing games, looking at sports: the regular things that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000954/smartphone-bans-havent-worked-in-california-schools-but-some-districts-share-advice-on-what-may-work\">teenagers do on their cellphones\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the Florida teen was having conversations with an artificial intelligence chatbot — and growing emotionally connected to it. \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/FCXWgZjybm0?si=khMUy1ByyRr6R9YI\">Speaking to “CBS Mornings”\u003c/a> shortly after suing Bay Area-based \u003ca href=\"http://character.ai\">Character.AI\u003c/a> (C.AI) and Google last fall, Garcia said she was blindsided by the intensity of the interactions her son had with C.AI’s chatbot shortly before his death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t know that he was talking to a very human-like AI chatbot that has the ability to mimic human emotion and human sentiment,” said Garcia, who is a lawyer. “It makes me sad that this was my child’s first experience being in love or romance. That’s saddening to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia blames C.AI for her son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., co-founder of the bipartisan \u003ca href=\"https://www.padilla.senate.gov/mhc/\">Senate Mental Health Caucus\u003c/a>, and Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., sent letters to the CEOs of the companies behind C.AI and two other leading AI chatbots, Chai and Replika, urging them to do more to ensure their products do not contribute to self-harm or suicide among young users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although a couple of the companies recently announced new safety features, Padilla and Welch insist the reliability of these systems is unclear. That’s even though surveys show teens are looking to AI for answers about their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/64014/teens-are-looking-to-ai-for-answers-about-their-personal-lives-not-just-homework-help\">personal lives\u003c/a>, not just help with homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The synthetic attention users receive from these chatbots (e.g., streams of expressive messages, sycophantic and agreeable responses, AI-generated selfies, and convincing voice calls) can, and has already, led to dangerous levels of attachment and unearned trust,” the senators wrote in the letters to \u003ca href=\"https://www.padilla.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/AI-Chatbot-Safety-Character-Technologies.pdf\">Character Technologies\u003c/a> of Menlo Park, \u003ca href=\"https://www.padilla.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/AI-Chatbot-Safety-Chai.pdf\">Chai Research\u003c/a> of Palo Alto, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.padilla.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/AI-Chatbot-Safety-Replika.pdf\">Luka\u003c/a> of San Francisco.[aside postID=science_1996504 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/IMG_0962-1020x765.jpg']“Policymakers, parents, and their kids deserve to know what your companies are doing to protect users from these known risks,” the senators wrote, “given that young people are accessing your products — where the average user spends approximately 60–90 minutes per day interacting with these AI chatbots.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI companionship apps tend to be more permissive than better-known general apps like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. That’s because companionship app users are often looking to engage with them as sexual and/or romantic partners. On the Character.AI \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterAI/\">subreddit\u003c/a>, it doesn’t take a long search to find questions like: “How many of you here use character.ai for loneliness? I’ve had no friends or social life for about 10 years and rarely leave my house, character.ai has really helped me feel a little bit better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Character.AI, users can create their own chatbots and give them directions about how they should act. They can also select from chatbots created by others that mimic historical figures and celebrities. The Florida teen, for instance, used a bot mimicking the “Game of Thrones” character \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbuBfizSnPk\">Daenerys Targaryen\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI companions are kind of a sleeper issue for a lot of Americans,” said Danny Weiss, the chief advocacy officer for Common Sense Media. “Many parents don’t even know that their kids might be developing relationships with machines.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chelsea Harrison, head of communications at Character.AI, told KQED that the company welcomes working with regulators and lawmakers and has been in contact with Padilla’s and Welch’s offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past year, we’ve rolled out many safety features on the platform, including \u003ca href=\"https://blog.character.ai/introducing-parental-insights-enhanced-safety-for-teens/\">Parental Insights\u003c/a>, which provides parents and guardians access to a summary of their teen’s activity on the platform,” Harrison wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harrison added that the company serves a separate experience to teenagers “that is designed to further reduce the likelihood of users encountering, or prompting the model to return, sensitive or suggestive content.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s unlikely Democratic lawmakers will be able to move the Republican-led Congress to regulate AI, Weiss applauded Padilla and Welch for drawing attention to the issue and noted the dozens of AI-related bills introduced in Sacramento have a greater chance of making it into law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Right now, there are no guardrails on artificial intelligence companions,” Weiss said. “That is ridiculous. This technology is amazingly powerful. It’s seductive. It’s exciting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, in partnership with Common Sense, introduced \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1064\">AB 1064\u003c/a>, which would establish a standards board to assess and regulate AI technologies used by children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243\">Senate Bill 243\u003c/a>, introduced by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, will be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee this Tuesday. The measure, which Common Sense also supports, would require chatbot operators to implement critical safeguards to protect users from the addictive, isolating and influential aspects of AI chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahead of the hearing, Padilla will promote the bill with a press conference, where he’ll be joined by the bereft Florida mother, Megan Garcia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To help a young person who may be struggling with depression or anxiety, dial 988 to reach the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Policymakers, parents, and their kids deserve to know what your companies are doing to protect users from these known risks,” the senators wrote, “given that young people are accessing your products — where the average user spends approximately 60–90 minutes per day interacting with these AI chatbots.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI companionship apps tend to be more permissive than better-known general apps like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. That’s because companionship app users are often looking to engage with them as sexual and/or romantic partners. On the Character.AI \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterAI/\">subreddit\u003c/a>, it doesn’t take a long search to find questions like: “How many of you here use character.ai for loneliness? I’ve had no friends or social life for about 10 years and rarely leave my house, character.ai has really helped me feel a little bit better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Character.AI, users can create their own chatbots and give them directions about how they should act. They can also select from chatbots created by others that mimic historical figures and celebrities. The Florida teen, for instance, used a bot mimicking the “Game of Thrones” character \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbuBfizSnPk\">Daenerys Targaryen\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI companions are kind of a sleeper issue for a lot of Americans,” said Danny Weiss, the chief advocacy officer for Common Sense Media. “Many parents don’t even know that their kids might be developing relationships with machines.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chelsea Harrison, head of communications at Character.AI, told KQED that the company welcomes working with regulators and lawmakers and has been in contact with Padilla’s and Welch’s offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past year, we’ve rolled out many safety features on the platform, including \u003ca href=\"https://blog.character.ai/introducing-parental-insights-enhanced-safety-for-teens/\">Parental Insights\u003c/a>, which provides parents and guardians access to a summary of their teen’s activity on the platform,” Harrison wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harrison added that the company serves a separate experience to teenagers “that is designed to further reduce the likelihood of users encountering, or prompting the model to return, sensitive or suggestive content.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s unlikely Democratic lawmakers will be able to move the Republican-led Congress to regulate AI, Weiss applauded Padilla and Welch for drawing attention to the issue and noted the dozens of AI-related bills introduced in Sacramento have a greater chance of making it into law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Right now, there are no guardrails on artificial intelligence companions,” Weiss said. “That is ridiculous. This technology is amazingly powerful. It’s seductive. It’s exciting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, in partnership with Common Sense, introduced \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1064\">AB 1064\u003c/a>, which would establish a standards board to assess and regulate AI technologies used by children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243\">Senate Bill 243\u003c/a>, introduced by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, will be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee this Tuesday. The measure, which Common Sense also supports, would require chatbot operators to implement critical safeguards to protect users from the addictive, isolating and influential aspects of AI chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahead of the hearing, Padilla will promote the bill with a press conference, where he’ll be joined by the bereft Florida mother, Megan Garcia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To help a young person who may be struggling with depression or anxiety, dial 988 to reach the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s no secret that artificial intelligence developers train their models on books, music, movies and other copyrighted materials without obtaining consent or \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11958785/how-silicon-valley-ate-hollywood\">providing credit and compensation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last week,\u003ca href=\"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/openai-urges-trump-either-settle-ai-copyright-debate-or-lose-ai-race-to-china/\"> OpenAI\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/google-us-ai-action-plan-comments/\"> Google\u003c/a> publicly argued copyright protections should not apply to AI development because the software uses existing works to create something new and different. Both companies were seen to be signaling to the Trump administration that they wanted disruptive changes to copyright law, some form of which existed since\u003ca href=\"https://www.copyright.gov/history/copyright-exhibit/beginnings/#:~:text=Congress%20implemented%20the%20intellectual%20property,law%20on%20May%2031,%201790.\"> 1790\u003c/a> when it was signed into law by President George Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll need the right policy frameworks to secure America’s position as an AI powerhouse and support a new era of opportunity,” wrote Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs for Google and its parent company, Alphabet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Bay Area lawmaker, backed by the union that represents Hollywood actors, is wading into the fight over copyright.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI Copyright Transparency Act,\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB412\"> AB 412\u003c/a>, introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), doesn’t promise to address the fundamental disagreement over what constitutes fair use, which is still working its way\u003ca href=\"https://www.bakerlaw.com/services/artificial-intelligence-ai/case-tracker-artificial-intelligence-copyrights-and-class-actions/\"> through the courts\u003c/a> in multiple lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation would require AI developers to disclose when copyrighted materials are used to train generative artificial intelligence models.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 412 “merely provides the copyright holder with notice,” Bauer-Kahan said in the measure’s first legislative hearing before the Privacy And Consumer Protection committee she chairs in the California Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When Scarlett Johansson’s voice is coming out of an AI model, the people that own the copyrights to the movies and the works she was in have a right to know, ‘Is that why it sounds like Scarlett Johansson?’” Bauer-Kahan said, referring to the widely publicized battle between the\u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/scarlett-johansson-ai-legal-threat-1235905899/\"> actor and OpenAI\u003c/a> for allegedly copying and imitating her voice after she refused to license it to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill is sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and co-sponsored by the Creative Artists Agency and the National Association of Voice Actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11958785 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1558852156-1020x699.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joely Fisher, SAG-AFTRA Secretary-Treasurer and chair of its government affairs and public policy committee, said the fight over AI was at the heart of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11956178/its-now-or-never-writers-and-actors-see-conflict-with-big-tech-as-existential\">the union’s strike\u003c/a> against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that ran 118 days in 2023. The language about AI in the contract wasn’t approved until the 11th hour, she said, “always knowing that we needed legislation to enforce some of the things that we talked about and our studio partners agreed to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The technology is advancing rapidly, she added. Just a few years ago, it was remarkable that her half-sister Carrie Fisher appeared posthumously in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with a composite of unused footage from The Force Awakens and archival footage from the original trilogy. In that case, there was consent and compensation for the family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were able to use a synthetic performer, which is, like, terrible to even have that come out of my mouth,” Fisher said. But now, she continued, the more likely threat to creative artists is a synthesis of their work and others’ work. “We could all be put into one of the blenders, and they could spit out a character that is a little bit of all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Electronic Frontier Foundation and the California Chamber of Commerce oppose the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AB 412 imposes an impossible new regulatory regime that would cause devastating collateral damage for research and innovation,” said Becca Kramer of Kaiser Advocacy, testifying on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She also warned the bill could unintentionally advantage Silicon Valley’s reigning giants. “Big Tech can afford the content licensing and legal teams to handle litigation over whether they made the reasonable efforts required by, but not defined, in the bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee approved AB 412, passing it to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, Bauer-Kahan is in a pole position to push her bill and others regulating AI through to the governor’s desk. She and other California lawmakers, like state senate budget chair Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), have fired off a\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/03/ai-regulation-after-trump-election/\"> salvo of 30 bills\u003c/a> since the start of the legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a follow-up to last year when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than 20 AI laws but vetoed others, including the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\"> most high-profile bill by Wiener\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, Newsom convened the Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models, which has just released an\u003ca href=\"https://www.cafrontieraigov.org\"> interim report\u003c/a> presenting a framework for the governance of AI models in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This report affirms with cutting-edge research that the rapid pace of technological advancement in AI means policymakers must act with haste to impose reasonable guardrails to mitigate foreseeable risks,” Sen. Wiener wrote in response, indicating another fight is underway between two of California’s most successful homegrown industries, with state lawmakers in the middle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED reporters and producers are represented by SAG-AFTRA.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s no secret that artificial intelligence developers train their models on books, music, movies and other copyrighted materials without obtaining consent or \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11958785/how-silicon-valley-ate-hollywood\">providing credit and compensation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last week,\u003ca href=\"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/openai-urges-trump-either-settle-ai-copyright-debate-or-lose-ai-race-to-china/\"> OpenAI\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/google-us-ai-action-plan-comments/\"> Google\u003c/a> publicly argued copyright protections should not apply to AI development because the software uses existing works to create something new and different. Both companies were seen to be signaling to the Trump administration that they wanted disruptive changes to copyright law, some form of which existed since\u003ca href=\"https://www.copyright.gov/history/copyright-exhibit/beginnings/#:~:text=Congress%20implemented%20the%20intellectual%20property,law%20on%20May%2031,%201790.\"> 1790\u003c/a> when it was signed into law by President George Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll need the right policy frameworks to secure America’s position as an AI powerhouse and support a new era of opportunity,” wrote Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs for Google and its parent company, Alphabet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Bay Area lawmaker, backed by the union that represents Hollywood actors, is wading into the fight over copyright.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI Copyright Transparency Act,\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB412\"> AB 412\u003c/a>, introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), doesn’t promise to address the fundamental disagreement over what constitutes fair use, which is still working its way\u003ca href=\"https://www.bakerlaw.com/services/artificial-intelligence-ai/case-tracker-artificial-intelligence-copyrights-and-class-actions/\"> through the courts\u003c/a> in multiple lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation would require AI developers to disclose when copyrighted materials are used to train generative artificial intelligence models.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 412 “merely provides the copyright holder with notice,” Bauer-Kahan said in the measure’s first legislative hearing before the Privacy And Consumer Protection committee she chairs in the California Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When Scarlett Johansson’s voice is coming out of an AI model, the people that own the copyrights to the movies and the works she was in have a right to know, ‘Is that why it sounds like Scarlett Johansson?’” Bauer-Kahan said, referring to the widely publicized battle between the\u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/scarlett-johansson-ai-legal-threat-1235905899/\"> actor and OpenAI\u003c/a> for allegedly copying and imitating her voice after she refused to license it to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill is sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and co-sponsored by the Creative Artists Agency and the National Association of Voice Actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joely Fisher, SAG-AFTRA Secretary-Treasurer and chair of its government affairs and public policy committee, said the fight over AI was at the heart of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11956178/its-now-or-never-writers-and-actors-see-conflict-with-big-tech-as-existential\">the union’s strike\u003c/a> against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that ran 118 days in 2023. The language about AI in the contract wasn’t approved until the 11th hour, she said, “always knowing that we needed legislation to enforce some of the things that we talked about and our studio partners agreed to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The technology is advancing rapidly, she added. Just a few years ago, it was remarkable that her half-sister Carrie Fisher appeared posthumously in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with a composite of unused footage from The Force Awakens and archival footage from the original trilogy. In that case, there was consent and compensation for the family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were able to use a synthetic performer, which is, like, terrible to even have that come out of my mouth,” Fisher said. But now, she continued, the more likely threat to creative artists is a synthesis of their work and others’ work. “We could all be put into one of the blenders, and they could spit out a character that is a little bit of all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Electronic Frontier Foundation and the California Chamber of Commerce oppose the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AB 412 imposes an impossible new regulatory regime that would cause devastating collateral damage for research and innovation,” said Becca Kramer of Kaiser Advocacy, testifying on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She also warned the bill could unintentionally advantage Silicon Valley’s reigning giants. “Big Tech can afford the content licensing and legal teams to handle litigation over whether they made the reasonable efforts required by, but not defined, in the bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee approved AB 412, passing it to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, Bauer-Kahan is in a pole position to push her bill and others regulating AI through to the governor’s desk. She and other California lawmakers, like state senate budget chair Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), have fired off a\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/03/ai-regulation-after-trump-election/\"> salvo of 30 bills\u003c/a> since the start of the legislative session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a follow-up to last year when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than 20 AI laws but vetoed others, including the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007087/california-blinks-governor-newsom-vetoes-ai-bill-aimed-at-catastrophic-harms\"> most high-profile bill by Wiener\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, Newsom convened the Joint California Policy Working Group on AI Frontier Models, which has just released an\u003ca href=\"https://www.cafrontieraigov.org\"> interim report\u003c/a> presenting a framework for the governance of AI models in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This report affirms with cutting-edge research that the rapid pace of technological advancement in AI means policymakers must act with haste to impose reasonable guardrails to mitigate foreseeable risks,” Sen. Wiener wrote in response, indicating another fight is underway between two of California’s most successful homegrown industries, with state lawmakers in the middle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED reporters and producers are represented by SAG-AFTRA.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "california-has-30-new-proposals-to-rein-in-ai-trump-could-complicate-them",
"title": "California Has 30 New Proposals to Rein in AI. Trump Could Complicate Them",
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"content": "\u003cp>AI can get rid of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12009822/stanford-ai-model-helps-locate-racist-deeds-in-santa-clara-county\">racist restrictions in housing covenants\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lhc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Report285-Final.pdf\">help people access government benefits (PDF)\u003c/a>, or it can \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/13/lawsuit-unitedhealth-artificial-intelligence-care-denials-medicare-advantage-moves-forward/\">deny people health care\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/denied/2021/08/25/dozens-of-mortgage-lenders-showed-significant-disparities-here-are-the-worst\">a mortgage because of their race\u003c/a>. That’s why, last month, for the third year in a row, Democratic Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/rebecca-bauer-kahan-165035\">Rebecca Bauer-Kahan\u003c/a> of San Ramon \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">proposed a bill\u003c/a> to protect people from automated discrimination and AI that makes consequential decisions with the power to change a person’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, Assembly Bill 1018 will require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used and to notify people before AI makes decisions about employment, education, housing, health care, finance, criminal sentencing, and access to government services. It would also give people the right to opt-out of AI use and appeal a decision made by an AI model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, California lawmakers like Bauer-Kahan are surging forward with 30 bills to regulate how AI impacts individuals and society, and some of the most high profile efforts are ones that the lawmakers attempted last year only to see them vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom or fail to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the bill that guards against automated discrimination, lawmakers will again consider other legislation to protect society from AI, including a bill that requires a human driver in commercial vehicles and a new version of a measure to previously intended compel companies to better examine whether AI can cause harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new wave of proposals follows a batch of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">more than 20 AI laws Newsom signed last year\u003c/a>, but they are moving forward in a very different political environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the Biden administration supported measures to protect people from bias and discrimination and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-safety-bill-california-legislature/\">major companies signed pledges to responsibly develop AI\u003c/a>, but today the White House under President Donald Trump opposes regulation and companies including Google are \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/technology/ai/responsible-ai-2024-report-ongoing-work/\">rolling back their own responsible AI rules\u003c/a>. On his first day in office, Trump rescinded a \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/joe-bidens-executive-order-ai-us-government-chatgpt/\">Biden executive order\u003c/a> intended to protect people and society from AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That dissonance could ultimately help the California lawmakers who want more AI protections. In a world of rapid-fire White House executive orders and chaotic, AI-driven decision-making by DOGE, there’s going to be more appetite for state lawmakers to regulate AI, said Stephan Aguilar, associate director of the Center for Generative AI and Society at the University of Southern California.[aside postID=news_12007087 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GettyImages-2171266139-1020x680.jpg']“I think California in particular is in position to say, ‘Okay we need mitigants [\u003cem>sic\u003c/em>] in place now that folks are coming in with a wrecking ball,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bills will need to get through Newsom, who last year vetoed bills intended to protect people from \u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24258349/california-governor-signs-veto-autonomous-vehicle-law\">self-driving trucks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2681\">weaponized robots\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb892\">set standards for AI contracts signed by state agencies\u003c/a>. Most notably, Newsom vetoed what was billed as the single-most comprehensive effort to regulate AI by compelling \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\">testing of AI models\u003c/a> to determine whether they would likely lead to mass death, endanger public infrastructure, or enable severe cyberattacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom vetoed the self-driving trucks and AI testing bills in part on the grounds that the bills could hinder innovation. He then created an AI working group to balance innovation with guardrails. That group should \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/news/update-from-the-co-leads-of-the-joint-california-policy-working-group-on-ai-frontier-models\">release recommendations\u003c/a> about how to strike that balance in the coming weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, who carried the prominent AI bill, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb53\">reintroduced a version of that proposal last month\u003c/a>. Compared to last year, the bill is scaled back to protections for AI whistleblowers and establishment of a state cloud to enable research in the public interest. A \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\">former OpenAI employee who witnessed violation of internal safety policy told CalMatters\u003c/a> that whistleblower protections are needed to keep society safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031241\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan speaks in support of SCR 135, which would designate May 6, 2024 as California Holocaust Memorial Day on the Assembly floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bauer-Kahan was the first state lawmaker to propose legislation that contains the \u003ca href=\"https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/\">AI Bill of Rights,\u003c/a> a set of principles that the Biden administration and tech justice researchers called foundational to protecting people’s rights in the age of AI including the right to live free from discrimination, the right to know when AI makes important decisions about your life, and the right to know when an automated system is being used.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>It didn’t become law, but roughly a dozen states have passed or are considering similar bills, according to Consumer Reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press conference to reintroduce her bill, Bauer-Kahan said the Trump administration’s stance on AI regulation changes “the dynamic for the states.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is on us more,” she said, pointing to his repeal of \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/trump-revokes-biden-executive-order-addressing-ai-risks-2025-01-21/\">an executive order\u003c/a> influenced by the AI Bill of Rights and the stall of the AI Civil Rights Act in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The tale of two administrations in Paris\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dueling perspectives on how the U.S and the rest of the world should regulate AI were on display earlier this month in Paris at a summit attended by CEOs and heads of state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In comments at a private “working dinner” hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, alongside people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, AI Bill of Rights author and former director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Alondra \u003ca href=\"https://www.techpolicy.press/three-fallacies-alondra-nelsons-remarks-at-elyse-palace-on-the-occasion-of-the-ai-action-summit/\">Nelson urged business and government leaders\u003c/a> to discard misconceptions about AI like that its purpose is scale and efficiency. AI can accelerate growth, but its purpose is to serve humanity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is not inevitable that AI will lead to great public benefits,” she said in remarks at the event. “We can create systems that expand opportunity rather than concentrate power. We can build technology that strengthens democracy rather than undermines it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031242\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031242\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Technology leaders attend a generative artificial intelligence meeting in San Francisco on June 29, 2023. \u003ccite>(Carlos Barria/Reuters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By contrast, Vice President J.D. Vance at the same event said the United States will fight \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/paris-ai-summit-vance-1d7826affdcdb76c580c0558af8d68d2\">what he called excessive AI regulation\u003c/a>. The U.S. refused to sign an international declaration to “ensure AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration’s position that regulation is a threat to AI innovation mirrors the talking points of major companies such as\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\"> Google, Meta, and OpenAI\u003c/a> that lobbied against regulation last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Debate about whether to regulate AI comes at a time when Elon Musk, President Trump, and a small group of technologists seek to build and use AI within numerous federal agencies to improve efficiency and save money.[aside postID=news_11947039 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/SurveillancePricingBillsgGetty.jpg']Those efforts risk cutting benefits to people who depend on them. A report released in late 2024 by California-based nonprofit TechTonic Justice found that AI influences government services \u003ca href=\"https://www.techtonicjustice.org/reports/inescapable-ai\">for tens of millions of lower-income Americans\u003c/a>, often cutting benefits they’re entitled to and making opportunities harder to access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The majority of global venture capital investment and lots of talent and major companies are in the Bay Area, so California has more to gain or lose in regulatory debates than anywhere else in the world, said Matt Regan, a vice president for Bay Area Council, an advocacy group for more than 300 companies including tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The Bay Area Council hasn’t taken a position on bills proposed in this session, but last year opposed Wiener’s AI testing proposal and the anti-discrimination bill proposed by Bauer-Kahan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regan said California regulators have proposed “over engineered protections and audits” that make the technology functionally useless and hamper businesses. The business group Chamber of Progress estimates that compliance with anti-discrimination bills in California, Colorado, and Virginia, could cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The political landscape has moved toward the center since California lawmakers proposed AI bills a year ago, which is why he thinks Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas urged his colleagues to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/02/california-affordability-housing-costs-legislation/\">focus on pocketbook issues\u003c/a>. Due to those shifts, he thinks that in order for bills to avoid a veto like the kind that killed Wiener’s measure, Regan said lawmakers must draft bills that reach a “goldilocks zone,” balancing consumer protections with buy-in from business leaders. The forthcoming report from the working group convened by Gov. Newsom may offer tips on how to reach a goldilocks zone between making AI useful and punishing bad actors for abusing the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>AI regulation with teeth\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A 2024 \u003ca href=\"https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/2024-carnegie-california-global-affairs-survey?lang=en\">Carnegie California report\u003c/a> found that a majority of Californians support an international agreement on AI standards as a way to protect human rights. But virtually every international agreement signed by tech companies is voluntary or has no legally-binding bite, said David Evan Harris in a presentation at an\u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/btlj-bclt-spring2025/\"> AI governance symposium held by UC Berkeley\u003c/a> earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why he encourages civil society groups who want to make change to speak with California lawmakers. Harris is on the advisory board member at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, a group that\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\"> cosponsored laws to protect people from deepfakes\u003c/a> that is getting\u003ca href=\"https://fortune.com/2024/09/19/california-deepfake-laws-challenged-court-creator-kamala-harris-parody-videos/\"> challenged in court\u003c/a> by Elon Musk’s company X, formerly Twitter. Previously he was part of responsible AI and civic integrity teams at Meta.[aside postID=news_12020857 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-09-KQED-1020x680.jpg']Last year he testified about AI 11 times in the California Legislature, and while he describes California as among the only places in the world where AI regulation is legally binding, he saw a frustrating pattern repeat itself: Lawmakers introduce AI bills, they get assigned to committees, and then “the bills get revised and completely rewritten by the tech companies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A prime example of this, he said, comes from a bill that attempted to fine social media companies for harming children. When it was introduced it had bipartisan support, but tech companies opposed the bill, and it \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/30/california-bill-penalizing-social-media-harms-to-kids-is-shelved-00176892\">got weakened then shelved\u003c/a> in a committee hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The tech companies depend on nobody watching that happen,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili Gangas is chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland that focuses on issues at the intersection of equity and technology, and follows policy developments in California and Congress. Given our current political environment and the elimination of AI protections by the White House, Gangas thinks there may be more support for passage of anti-discrimination bills in California and public support for such protections may be on the rise. Still, she worries that it may be difficult to pass AI regulation because of stepped-up lobbying in Sacramento by tech companies that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/02/california-lobbying-state-government/\">set a record last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also questions whether \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/03/scott-wiener-pelosi-elections-california-00161159\">politicians with ambitions for higher office\u003c/a> will put implementation ahead of drafting legislation that’s intended to bolster their careers. If lawmakers can overcome those challenges and keep costs low, she believes California can lead the way despite failures to do so by Congress and the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that [rescinded executive order and failure to pass a law in Congress] makes it even more important now at the California level,” she said. “We can hold the line, center civil rights protections, and give the attorney general and individuals the opportunity to take action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031243\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031243\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The seal above the offices of the California Department of Justice in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>States often pressure the federal government to protect people and their civil rights from emerging technology, said Alex Ault, policy counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The racial justice nonprofit endorsed the Eliminating Bias in Algorithmic Systems Act in 2023 and AI Civil Rights Act in 2024 in Congress, two bills with similar principles to the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the anti-discrimination bill proposed in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/2024-carnegie-california-global-affairs-survey?lang=en\">Carnegie California poll\u003c/a> of 1,500 people released last fall named \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/tag/artificial-intelligence/\">artificial intelligence\u003c/a> one of six major issues facing Californians alongside climate change and infectious disease. Half of respondents said they’re worried or pessimistic about AI and 35% percent say they’re optimistic or excited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would behoove state legislatures who are looking at what’s happening federally to say ‘Okay, what do we have control over?” Ault said. “How do we protect people’s rights?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Wiener, Bauer-Kahan did not water down her vision for AI regulation. As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, she’s one of the most powerful regulators of technology in the California Legislature, but last year the bill faced opposition by tech companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI as well as business interests in other industries like hospital administrators, real estate agents, and hotel owners. After getting amended to focus on employment only, Bauer-Kahan chose to hold the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we had the votes for passage, getting the policy right is priority one,” she said in a statement last year. “This remains a critical issue and one I refuse to let California get wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "President Trump is taking a very different approach to AI than the Biden administration, and it could affect how California regulates artificial intelligence.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>AI can get rid of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12009822/stanford-ai-model-helps-locate-racist-deeds-in-santa-clara-county\">racist restrictions in housing covenants\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lhc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Report285-Final.pdf\">help people access government benefits (PDF)\u003c/a>, or it can \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/13/lawsuit-unitedhealth-artificial-intelligence-care-denials-medicare-advantage-moves-forward/\">deny people health care\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/denied/2021/08/25/dozens-of-mortgage-lenders-showed-significant-disparities-here-are-the-worst\">a mortgage because of their race\u003c/a>. That’s why, last month, for the third year in a row, Democratic Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/rebecca-bauer-kahan-165035\">Rebecca Bauer-Kahan\u003c/a> of San Ramon \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">proposed a bill\u003c/a> to protect people from automated discrimination and AI that makes consequential decisions with the power to change a person’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, Assembly Bill 1018 will require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used and to notify people before AI makes decisions about employment, education, housing, health care, finance, criminal sentencing, and access to government services. It would also give people the right to opt-out of AI use and appeal a decision made by an AI model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, California lawmakers like Bauer-Kahan are surging forward with 30 bills to regulate how AI impacts individuals and society, and some of the most high profile efforts are ones that the lawmakers attempted last year only to see them vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom or fail to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the bill that guards against automated discrimination, lawmakers will again consider other legislation to protect society from AI, including a bill that requires a human driver in commercial vehicles and a new version of a measure to previously intended compel companies to better examine whether AI can cause harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new wave of proposals follows a batch of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">more than 20 AI laws Newsom signed last year\u003c/a>, but they are moving forward in a very different political environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the Biden administration supported measures to protect people from bias and discrimination and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-safety-bill-california-legislature/\">major companies signed pledges to responsibly develop AI\u003c/a>, but today the White House under President Donald Trump opposes regulation and companies including Google are \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/technology/ai/responsible-ai-2024-report-ongoing-work/\">rolling back their own responsible AI rules\u003c/a>. On his first day in office, Trump rescinded a \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/joe-bidens-executive-order-ai-us-government-chatgpt/\">Biden executive order\u003c/a> intended to protect people and society from AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That dissonance could ultimately help the California lawmakers who want more AI protections. In a world of rapid-fire White House executive orders and chaotic, AI-driven decision-making by DOGE, there’s going to be more appetite for state lawmakers to regulate AI, said Stephan Aguilar, associate director of the Center for Generative AI and Society at the University of Southern California.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I think California in particular is in position to say, ‘Okay we need mitigants [\u003cem>sic\u003c/em>] in place now that folks are coming in with a wrecking ball,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bills will need to get through Newsom, who last year vetoed bills intended to protect people from \u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24258349/california-governor-signs-veto-autonomous-vehicle-law\">self-driving trucks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab2681\">weaponized robots\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb892\">set standards for AI contracts signed by state agencies\u003c/a>. Most notably, Newsom vetoed what was billed as the single-most comprehensive effort to regulate AI by compelling \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\">testing of AI models\u003c/a> to determine whether they would likely lead to mass death, endanger public infrastructure, or enable severe cyberattacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom vetoed the self-driving trucks and AI testing bills in part on the grounds that the bills could hinder innovation. He then created an AI working group to balance innovation with guardrails. That group should \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/news/update-from-the-co-leads-of-the-joint-california-policy-working-group-on-ai-frontier-models\">release recommendations\u003c/a> about how to strike that balance in the coming weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, who carried the prominent AI bill, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb53\">reintroduced a version of that proposal last month\u003c/a>. Compared to last year, the bill is scaled back to protections for AI whistleblowers and establishment of a state cloud to enable research in the public interest. A \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\">former OpenAI employee who witnessed violation of internal safety policy told CalMatters\u003c/a> that whistleblower protections are needed to keep society safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031241\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/042924-State-Capitol-Session-MG-CM-19-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan speaks in support of SCR 135, which would designate May 6, 2024 as California Holocaust Memorial Day on the Assembly floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bauer-Kahan was the first state lawmaker to propose legislation that contains the \u003ca href=\"https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/\">AI Bill of Rights,\u003c/a> a set of principles that the Biden administration and tech justice researchers called foundational to protecting people’s rights in the age of AI including the right to live free from discrimination, the right to know when AI makes important decisions about your life, and the right to know when an automated system is being used.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>It didn’t become law, but roughly a dozen states have passed or are considering similar bills, according to Consumer Reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a press conference to reintroduce her bill, Bauer-Kahan said the Trump administration’s stance on AI regulation changes “the dynamic for the states.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is on us more,” she said, pointing to his repeal of \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/trump-revokes-biden-executive-order-addressing-ai-risks-2025-01-21/\">an executive order\u003c/a> influenced by the AI Bill of Rights and the stall of the AI Civil Rights Act in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The tale of two administrations in Paris\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dueling perspectives on how the U.S and the rest of the world should regulate AI were on display earlier this month in Paris at a summit attended by CEOs and heads of state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In comments at a private “working dinner” hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, alongside people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, AI Bill of Rights author and former director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Alondra \u003ca href=\"https://www.techpolicy.press/three-fallacies-alondra-nelsons-remarks-at-elyse-palace-on-the-occasion-of-the-ai-action-summit/\">Nelson urged business and government leaders\u003c/a> to discard misconceptions about AI like that its purpose is scale and efficiency. AI can accelerate growth, but its purpose is to serve humanity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is not inevitable that AI will lead to great public benefits,” she said in remarks at the event. “We can create systems that expand opportunity rather than concentrate power. We can build technology that strengthens democracy rather than undermines it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031242\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031242\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Technology leaders attend a generative artificial intelligence meeting in San Francisco on June 29, 2023. \u003ccite>(Carlos Barria/Reuters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By contrast, Vice President J.D. Vance at the same event said the United States will fight \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/paris-ai-summit-vance-1d7826affdcdb76c580c0558af8d68d2\">what he called excessive AI regulation\u003c/a>. The U.S. refused to sign an international declaration to “ensure AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration’s position that regulation is a threat to AI innovation mirrors the talking points of major companies such as\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/08/ai-regulation-showdown/\"> Google, Meta, and OpenAI\u003c/a> that lobbied against regulation last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Debate about whether to regulate AI comes at a time when Elon Musk, President Trump, and a small group of technologists seek to build and use AI within numerous federal agencies to improve efficiency and save money.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Those efforts risk cutting benefits to people who depend on them. A report released in late 2024 by California-based nonprofit TechTonic Justice found that AI influences government services \u003ca href=\"https://www.techtonicjustice.org/reports/inescapable-ai\">for tens of millions of lower-income Americans\u003c/a>, often cutting benefits they’re entitled to and making opportunities harder to access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The majority of global venture capital investment and lots of talent and major companies are in the Bay Area, so California has more to gain or lose in regulatory debates than anywhere else in the world, said Matt Regan, a vice president for Bay Area Council, an advocacy group for more than 300 companies including tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The Bay Area Council hasn’t taken a position on bills proposed in this session, but last year opposed Wiener’s AI testing proposal and the anti-discrimination bill proposed by Bauer-Kahan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regan said California regulators have proposed “over engineered protections and audits” that make the technology functionally useless and hamper businesses. The business group Chamber of Progress estimates that compliance with anti-discrimination bills in California, Colorado, and Virginia, could cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The political landscape has moved toward the center since California lawmakers proposed AI bills a year ago, which is why he thinks Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas urged his colleagues to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/02/california-affordability-housing-costs-legislation/\">focus on pocketbook issues\u003c/a>. Due to those shifts, he thinks that in order for bills to avoid a veto like the kind that killed Wiener’s measure, Regan said lawmakers must draft bills that reach a “goldilocks zone,” balancing consumer protections with buy-in from business leaders. The forthcoming report from the working group convened by Gov. Newsom may offer tips on how to reach a goldilocks zone between making AI useful and punishing bad actors for abusing the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>AI regulation with teeth\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A 2024 \u003ca href=\"https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/2024-carnegie-california-global-affairs-survey?lang=en\">Carnegie California report\u003c/a> found that a majority of Californians support an international agreement on AI standards as a way to protect human rights. But virtually every international agreement signed by tech companies is voluntary or has no legally-binding bite, said David Evan Harris in a presentation at an\u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/btlj-bclt-spring2025/\"> AI governance symposium held by UC Berkeley\u003c/a> earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why he encourages civil society groups who want to make change to speak with California lawmakers. Harris is on the advisory board member at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, a group that\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\"> cosponsored laws to protect people from deepfakes\u003c/a> that is getting\u003ca href=\"https://fortune.com/2024/09/19/california-deepfake-laws-challenged-court-creator-kamala-harris-parody-videos/\"> challenged in court\u003c/a> by Elon Musk’s company X, formerly Twitter. Previously he was part of responsible AI and civic integrity teams at Meta.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Last year he testified about AI 11 times in the California Legislature, and while he describes California as among the only places in the world where AI regulation is legally binding, he saw a frustrating pattern repeat itself: Lawmakers introduce AI bills, they get assigned to committees, and then “the bills get revised and completely rewritten by the tech companies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A prime example of this, he said, comes from a bill that attempted to fine social media companies for harming children. When it was introduced it had bipartisan support, but tech companies opposed the bill, and it \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/30/california-bill-penalizing-social-media-harms-to-kids-is-shelved-00176892\">got weakened then shelved\u003c/a> in a committee hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The tech companies depend on nobody watching that happen,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili Gangas is chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland that focuses on issues at the intersection of equity and technology, and follows policy developments in California and Congress. Given our current political environment and the elimination of AI protections by the White House, Gangas thinks there may be more support for passage of anti-discrimination bills in California and public support for such protections may be on the rise. Still, she worries that it may be difficult to pass AI regulation because of stepped-up lobbying in Sacramento by tech companies that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/02/california-lobbying-state-government/\">set a record last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also questions whether \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/03/scott-wiener-pelosi-elections-california-00161159\">politicians with ambitions for higher office\u003c/a> will put implementation ahead of drafting legislation that’s intended to bolster their careers. If lawmakers can overcome those challenges and keep costs low, she believes California can lead the way despite failures to do so by Congress and the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that [rescinded executive order and failure to pass a law in Congress] makes it even more important now at the California level,” she said. “We can hold the line, center civil rights protections, and give the attorney general and individuals the opportunity to take action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031243\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031243\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The seal above the offices of the California Department of Justice in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>States often pressure the federal government to protect people and their civil rights from emerging technology, said Alex Ault, policy counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The racial justice nonprofit endorsed the Eliminating Bias in Algorithmic Systems Act in 2023 and AI Civil Rights Act in 2024 in Congress, two bills with similar principles to the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the anti-discrimination bill proposed in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/2024-carnegie-california-global-affairs-survey?lang=en\">Carnegie California poll\u003c/a> of 1,500 people released last fall named \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/tag/artificial-intelligence/\">artificial intelligence\u003c/a> one of six major issues facing Californians alongside climate change and infectious disease. Half of respondents said they’re worried or pessimistic about AI and 35% percent say they’re optimistic or excited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would behoove state legislatures who are looking at what’s happening federally to say ‘Okay, what do we have control over?” Ault said. “How do we protect people’s rights?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Wiener, Bauer-Kahan did not water down her vision for AI regulation. As chair of the consumer privacy and protection committee, she’s one of the most powerful regulators of technology in the California Legislature, but last year the bill faced opposition by tech companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI as well as business interests in other industries like hospital administrators, real estate agents, and hotel owners. After getting amended to focus on employment only, Bauer-Kahan chose to hold the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we had the votes for passage, getting the policy right is priority one,” she said in a statement last year. “This remains a critical issue and one I refuse to let California get wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Waymo Robotaxis - Uneasiness and Vandalism",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars. But what’s behind this hostility? In this episode, Morgan speaks with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomberg\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> journalist Ellen Huet and robot law professor Ryan Calo to explore the rise of Waymo vandalism and its roots in our collective anxiety over artificial intelligence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7694102813\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guests:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.ellenhuet.com/\">Ellen Huet\u003c/a>, Features writer at Bloomberg News\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://ischool.uw.edu/people/faculty/profile/rcalo\">Ryan Calo\u003c/a>, Professor of Law at University of Washington\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further reading:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-12-06/waymo-s-expansion-spurs-some-rage-against-the-self-driving-cars\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymo’s Expansion Provokes Anxieties of AI Takeover\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> – Ellen Huet, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomberg\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://qz.com/robotaxi-tesla-uber-lyft-waymo-mobileye-texas-1851759608\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next big robotaxi push is almost here\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> — Harri Weber, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quartz \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/technology/2018/03/the-deadly-uber-self-driving-car-crash-is-just-the-beginning.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Courts Can Handle the Deadly Uber Self-Driving Car Crash. But that doesn’t mean the law is ready for autonomous vehicles.\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> — Ryan Calo, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Slate\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/good-robot-bad-robot-jo-ann-oravec/1141932639\">Good Robot, Bad Robot: Dark and Creepy Sides of Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, and AI\u003c/a> — Jo Ann Oravec, Professor at the University of Wisconsin\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003c/h2>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do we look like influencers right now? Is this embarrassing to be walking up to a Waymo? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is me and my friend \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harri Weber\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> booking my first ride in a Waymo. It’s a self -driving car service. Some people also call them robo-taxis. Wait, I think I have to unlock it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, there we go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Morgan? No one’s going to respond. Waymo’s are, again, totally self -driving. There’s no human in the front seat. Hello from Waymo. As we get going, just give us one minute to cover a few… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I invited Harry because she’s also a tech journalist and she covers the future of cars. She recently wrote about the expansion of robo -taxis for courts. And also, we both had a craving for deli sandwiches from this one spot with terrible street parking. So why not take a Waymo? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s no one behind the wheel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is there a real need for the steering wheel? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Literally, I don’t see any purpose for it, but for whatever reason, there’s, you know, national laws require this steering wheel to still be there. It’s a little ghostly though, right? It’s nudging us around, it’s keeping us in the lane. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymo’s are something of a tourist attraction in California. My cousins always wanna take one whenever they come to visit me. But honestly, ever since Waymo’s launch a few months ago in Los Angeles, where Harri and I live, I’ve been pretty hesitant to take them. Part of it is, yeah, I don’t really trust a robot to drive me around, especially not through a very busy intersection in Koreatown during rush hour. But that’s where this car picked us up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These things aren’t perfect. Something could go wrong while we’re driving or while it’s moving us around. But Waymo’s claim based on its own data is that it is a lot safer than a human driver. I think that you’re probably more likely to find that they’re a nuisance than they are dangerous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But despite their great track record when it comes to safety, I feel like Waymo mishaps are always going viral. Like a couple of weeks ago, there was a video of a Waymo in San Francisco, ignoring a public works crew and driving straight through a sinkhole. And then there was a video of a guy in Arizona who called a Waymo to take him to the airport, but got stuck in a parking lot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m in a Waymo car. This car is just going in circles. I got my seatbelt on, I can’t get out the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymos make me feel a little uneasy, but it’s really other people’s reactions to Waymos that makes me nervous about being in one. Even getting in, in front of that coffee shop, did you feel self -conscious? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it felt a little uncool. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I felt so deeply uncool getting in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think something flipped when Google was first developing a driverless car. I think there was actually like a cool factor going, or maybe I was just that uncool that I thought it was cool. But tech criticism has evolved a lot since then. And so now we’re in this car and it does feel a little bit like we are maybe class traitors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it’s not just the uncool factor. Public reaction to Waymos has turned violent. Like this incident in San Francisco, where a bunch of guys started spray painting a Waymo while a group of women was inside. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are you attacking us? Connecting to writer support. Call may be recorded. Oh my God. Oh my god! Holy shit! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is also a recent viral video of people swarming a Waymo in Los Angeles. One of the guys in the video so gracefully leaps into the air and drop kicks the passenger door right off the hinges, while another person beats the Waymo’s windshield with a ripped off piece of its own front bumper. To be clear, it doesn’t seem like any living person has been hurt in any of these incidents, unless you count getting a little car sick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But to a lot of people, including myself, I’ll be honest, something about seeing robots do a human task just does not feel right. And clearly, it triggers some deep-seated instinct to attack. So what is behind this recent outburst of aggression against Waymos? Is it just that destroying them makes really good content that’s bound to go viral? Or is it our collective anxiety over the state of tech right now? This is Close All Tabs. I’m \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morgan Sung\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. People are justifiably jaded against Silicon Valley and the idea of a robot takeover would make anyone nervous. But why take it out on Waymo? All right, we’re gonna kick this off like we usually do. A new tab, Waymo Vandalism. We’re gonna talk to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellen Huet\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. She covers technology and Silicon Valley and startup culture for Bloomberg, or as she puts it, all things at the intersection of tech and humans. And she wrote about how Waymo’s recent expansion provoked so -called AI anxiety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as long as these cars have been around in their various iterations, so probably over the last decade or so, people have reacted to them with suspicion and at times with violence. Like even back in 2018 when early Waymo vehicles were being tested in Arizona, people threw rocks at them, people like attacked the cars. Even if these cases are rare, it has been somewhat consistent that people react to robot cars at times with anger or violence or like attempting to kind of outsmart them. You know, there are early stories of people who figured out that you could confuse autonomous cars by putting a traffic cone on the hood of the car. Right, I’ve seen that. And I – Yeah, and like, there’s clearly some human impulse to try to almost like assert agency or control over this vehicle that, you know, in some existential sense is kind of a threat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to wonder how much product design plays a role in ensuring that people are more receptive to these cars. I mean, I’m thinking of, you know, that 2000s movie, Herbie Fully Loaded, how it’s like a cutesy little buggy. And if I saw that driving around, I wouldn’t want to, like, beat that up. But when I see, like, a Cybertruck, I’m like, oh, fight or flight, activated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I guarantee lots of designers have spent a lot of time and energy thinking about this question. I remember, it must have been a decade ago, you know, I was a tech reporter, I was working at Forbes and I was invited to take a test drive in an early autonomous car. And what I remember most is that those early cars were designed to look so cute. Like it was like a little gumdrop shaped car and it was white and like its headlights We’re kind of that like. oval shape to make it look like, you know, like these cute little cartoon eyes. And yeah, I guarantee that designers and engineers spent a lot of time thinking about how to make this threatening-ish technology seem as cute and approachable as possible. But yeah, Waymo’s are obviously like kind of just like a normal-looking car. My guess is it’s not coincidence that they’re all white. maybe people associate that with, like, sort of angelic energy or something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But let’s talk about what’s at the root of this feeling that a lot of people have when confronted with a robot doing a human job. That is a new tab. Ready? Waymo and AI anxiety. Okay, so a lot of this anger against Waymo’s is due to the very real risk of job loss as robo-taxis begin replacing human drivers. But it’s also bigger than that. AI is moving into a lot of areas besides cars. In her story about this spike in Waymo vandalism, Ellen cited University of Wisconsin professor Jo Anne Oravec, who said that a lot of people are just not really comfortable with the realization that something else is intelligent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think people sometimes direct their general anxiety about, like, job displacement from AI toward Waymos just because these are objects that exist in the physical world and that you can actually smash the windshield of a Waymo car in the way that you can’t quite attack ChatGPT, right? Like, I think in some sense they’re at a disadvantage by simply being, like, a physical object. And something that you are reminded of every time, you know, one drives by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the cars have also done things that are genuinely annoying. Like in San Francisco, there was this cluster of Waymo cars that had gotten trapped in a honking war with each other. So they were like up at the middle of the night, you know, it’s like 4:30 in the morning. And neighbors who were trying to sleep near wherever these cars are gathered were being woken up at night by the sound of all of these cars honking at each other. And like in the most nonsensical way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The term AI can mean a lot of different things. Autonomous vehicles like Waymo do use artificial intelligence. They use cameras to see, they’re trained to recognize objects and calculate the distance between them. But it’s pretty different from how a generative AI tool like ChatGPT works, or how other AI generators work to produce images, videos, and music. But to a lot of people, the anxiety is the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think what makes people have this reaction, regardless of what type of AI it is, is that these products are being designed to do actions and take on jobs and responsibilities that used to be solely the jurisdiction of humans, right? So it used to be like only people could see and drive and manipulate a car and now we can see that a human is not needed to do that. And it used to be that a human was needed to provide half of a conversation, you couldn’t have that, you know, without another person on the other side of the line. Now, that’s no longer true. So I think what we’re seeing is, even though the technology is different, in some cases and in some ways, the human reaction to it is the same. Because I think it’s provoking the same question of, well, where do I belong in this world where this thing that I used to do can be done by a non-human entity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s a Waymo ad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Waymo Advertisement: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, it’s finally happening. The robots, they’re coming. Maybe that’s a good thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And like, Waymo’s clearly playing into people’s concerns about the robots, but putting like this positive spin on it. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I mean, an ad like that makes me laugh because I just imagine, I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the marketing discussions that led to that copy because I’m sure they were like, guys, we have to address the fact that some people are scared of this, but let’s make it cheeky, let’s make it funny. There are researchers out there who study human-robot relations and some of the things that they explained to me were like these human-like. objects that can move with some intelligence in our world feel existentially unsettling to us because we don’t know where we fall in the pecking order anymore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And don’t forget, we’ve been consuming so much sci-fi about how super advanced robots can totally disrupt our way of life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>I, Robot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robots don’t feel fear. They don’t feel anything. They don’t get hungry. They don’t sleep. I do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>M3gan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Megan, turn off. Are you sure? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>2001: A Space Odyssey: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open the pod bay doors, Hal. I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This pop culture fear of artificial intelligence and robots taking over has been around for a while, but it hasn’t been limited to the screen. Physical attacks on robots have been happening for over a decade. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A classic example is the story of Hitchbot. And the story of Hitchbot starts back in 2013 when a group of researchers decided they wanted to try to answer the question, can robots trust humans? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hitchbot will be depending on the kindness and the curiosity of strangers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So Hitchbot was this little humanoid robot that couldn’t really do much, but it was on a mission to hitchhike across Canada. It had a stocky, cylindrical body and goofy arms and legs made out of pool noodles. Its head had an LED panel with a little smiley face. Hitchbot couldn’t move on its own. It could only recognize human speech and engage in basic conversations, mostly to ask bystanders for help. It also had a GPS and took pictures of its surroundings every 20 minutes so that researchers could keep tabs on it. I mean, it was pretty adorable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And on its first few journeys, everything went fine. Like, people really got excited about this idea and wanted to contribute to helping the robot get from point A to point B. So Hitchbot traveled across Canada and traveled around Europe. And then in 2015, Hitchbot tried to do a cross-country trip across the United States and started in Boston. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Hitchbot only made it to Philadelphia, where it was tragically attacked and decapitated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the bench Hitchbot was killed on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh really? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know the story of Hitchbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it made it around the world and it died.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It didn’t make it around the world because it died in Philadelphia. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe they wanted to reassert their power or dominance over a human-like object and feel secure in their place as humans. But yeah, I think the story of Hitchbot tells us a lot about the psychology of humans versus robots. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right. And that Waymos may not be ready for Philly yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seems possible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK, clearly, there’s something here about robots that makes us uncomfortable. People don’t always respond well to things that look a little too human or act kind of human, but aren’t quite human. So aside from making the cars cuter in hopes that people won’t attack them, is there anything else Waymo can do? When I scroll past one of these videos of someone spray painting one of the cars…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are you attacking us? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or blocking its way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 4: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Get out of the way! Move! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or, worst case scenario, harassing someone inside, which did happen in San Francisco. With these videos, I’ve always wondered, why can’t the car just back up and drive away? Any human driver would. We’ll get into that and some other very thorny questions after this break. As this technology progresses, what are the implications of robots making their own decisions in these very high-stakes situations? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But that is a new tab. “The ethics of self-driving cars.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To dig into this, I called up \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan Calo\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He’s a legal scholar and a professor at the University of Washington School of Law. And his specialty? Robot law. So he had his own theory about what makes Waymo’s so attractive to vandalize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s the fact that they’re doing something transgressive where they’re, you know, they are of course vandalizing like an entity, an agent, but very much falls short of doing violence to a human being. Obviously these same people wouldn’t run up to a human being or a human cab driver and spray paint them. But the point of the matter is that, you know, there is this unease about these technologies, has to do with their novelty, has to do with their being too close to being these anthropomorphic agents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By anthropomorphic, Ryan means having human -like characteristics, even if it isn’t actually human. Yeah, I live in L.A., which has horrendous traffic, and so I watch a Waymo, try to make a U-turn, and get cut off at every possible opportunity, and I feel bad for it. What’s going on with that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s hard not to empathize, right? The fact is, is that human beings are quite bad at categorizing robots as either things or people. And the more anthropomorphic a technology is, the harder that is. So what’s really interesting about Waymo is, apparently, it’s associated as much with being a car as it is with being an entity. I always thought that if the vandalism were occurring inside the car, right? So sometimes people vandalize the interior of a Waymo because they’re just there by themselves, seemingly, Right? And it’s one thing to put a camera there, but if you were to put like an anthropomorphic robot driver in the Waymo that looked back at you when you get in to say, “Hey, where can I take you?” And also could be, was visible. Like when you saw the Waymo trying to make a U -turn, you saw like a person in there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s struggling. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever it was, it’s struggling. Or when somebody went to vandalize this thing, cause it to crash, you know, cause it to shut down, like vandalize it. And there’s this android in there looking at you that looks like a person. I think the outcome would be different. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan’s theory is that because Waymo’s don’t resemble any living thing, it’s easier to justify being violent. And sure, passengers would probably be creeped out by a robot doll in the driver’s seat, but maybe people would be discouraged from attacking it because there’s another human-ish thing there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s this concept called the uncanny valley. The deal is, it’s a valley, is that appreciation of the robot goes up and up and up and up and up and up and up, the more anthropomorphic it becomes, but then suddenly when it gets super close to actually like a human, it precipitously drops before coming back if it’s completely like a human, right? That’s the valley. Now, Waymo cars… They do not look like people, right? So they really are very far down on that curve. They’re more thrilling to vandalize than a mailbox. I just don’t see it happening with something that felt more like a person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah. You have written about the legal quandaries of self-driving cars, and when they first started hitting the road about five or so years ago, people were mostly worried about passenger safety and crashes. And it seems like companies like Waymo were maybe not so prepared for, like, the irate protesters?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to talk specifically about vandalism, this has messed up people working in AI and robotics for a long time, and so it shouldn’t really have surprised Waymo. I don’t know how one guards against it, right? Think about, Morgan, do you recall the time when Microsoft released that chatbot called Tay? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh my god. Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microsoft trains this chatbot early. This is pre-OpenAI and so on, and they released this Twitter-based chatbot that’s supposed to learn how to interact. Within an hour, there are these people, trolls on the Internet, getting it to say all kinds of racist and terrible things. They end up having to take the chatbot down. When the company was asked about “Why did this happen?” They’re like, “Well, we just didn’t anticipate that folks would do this,” unfortunately. The truth is about technology, especially like new emerging technology, you just don’t know how it’s going to play out in society. In fact, this leads some law professors like myself, to conclude that technology is a particularly difficult thing to regulate, because you don’t know how it’s going to play out in advance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Back in 2018, Ryan wrote an essay in Slate about whether the law was ready for self-driving cars. And in it, he refutes a common critique of this technology that has to do with the old philosophical dilemma known as the trolley problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trolley problem is this thought experiment about making decisions. You’ve got a train chugging along a track and it’s heading toward five people. But you, the decision maker, can flip a switch and direct the train to another track. Here’s the twist. There’s another single person stuck to that other track. So do you flip the switch? Save five people, but by making that decision, kill another? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the kind of thought experiment people love to refer to when puzzling over the morality of autonomous vehicles and other forms of AI. It’s the assumption that self -driving cars will have to make the same kinds of moral decisions. But Ryan says the engineers of these vehicles, and we as a public, should worry less about these philosophical hypotheticals and more about the practical real-life situations that these cars might face. Programming a moral compass is still up for debate. But programming object recognition is way more realistic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just imagine that a driverless car is always gonna be better than a person at avoiding a stroller in a parking lot. Always better because it’s better sensors, better response times, whatever. And the driverless car is also always gonna be better than a human being in avoiding a shopping cart, okay? But what happens if a driverless car encounters a shopping cart and a stroller at the same time. Imagine that the car confused about what to do and not able to differentiate between these two objects ends up making the wrong decision. Well, the headline reads, “Robot car kills baby to save groceries.” That’s the end of driverless cars in America, if that happens. So the thing that’s fascinating, with driverless car liability is it actually really matters the fact that driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn’t, even if they mess up less overall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, Ryan, as an expert in robot law, do you think driverless cars will have rights at some point, the way that humans do when they get into an accident? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What I will say is that we are very far from a situation where AI or robots will be able to claim rights the way that people have them. And even though some doomsayers claim that AI is going to wake up and kill everybody, you know, like the first time I see a presentation where like PowerPoint works perfectly, that will be when I worry about, you know, AV before AI. Like we’re just very far away from getting to that level of sophistication. Yeah but one day maybe, and at that time we’re really going to have to have an overhaul or a sea change in the law because suddenly there will be an entity that has rights and responsibilities but is not like us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The robot takeover is not going to happen anytime soon, but the friction between humans and these non-human counterparts, that’s only going to increase as AI creeps more and more into our lives. I’m gonna be honest, I thought that ride I took with my friend Harry was actually really nice. It was a nice temperature in there, the AC was going, there were lo -fi beats playing at such a reasonable volume. It didn’t smell weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s part of me that’s a little disappointed because, you know, I’m a little bit of a hater and so I want, I want to drive through cement. I want that to, I want to be the one who gets to, gets to like roll their eyes at these things that are sort of just. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inexplicably irksome. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are we getting Waymo pilled? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’re getting Waymo pilled. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I just don’t, I don’t wanna give in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Waymo Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pull the handle twice to exit. The first pull unlocks. The second opens the door. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, we’re pulling up to the curb now. There’s an older man at the crosswalk kind of just glaring this Waymo down and I feel really weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The deep shame, the shame! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to admit, it would have been great content if something wild did happen during my first Waymo ride. But like the majority of rides, it was pretty uneventful. It almost felt normal. And maybe that’s the real robot takeover. It’s the gradual, boring replacement of our everyday human interactions. For now, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morgan Sung\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our senior editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound Design by Maya Cueva. Original music by Chris Egusa with additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. Some members of the KQED Podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dust Silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. If you have feedback or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at closealltabs@kqed.org. Follow us on Instagram at CloseAllTabsPod. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars.",
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"description": "Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars. But what’s behind this hostility? In this episode, Morgan speaks with Bloomberg journalist Ellen Huet and robot law professor Ryan Calo to explore the rise of Waymo vandalism and its roots in our collective anxiety over artificial intelligence. ",
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"socialDescription": "Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars. But what’s behind this hostility? In this episode, Morgan speaks with Bloomberg journalist Ellen Huet and robot law professor Ryan Calo to explore the rise of Waymo vandalism and its roots in our collective anxiety over artificial intelligence. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Self-driving Waymo robotaxis have become a familiar sight in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but not everyone is happy about that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These “ghost-like” autonomous vehicles have made a lot of people uneasy, some even going as far as to vandalize the cars. But what’s behind this hostility? In this episode, Morgan speaks with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomberg\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> journalist Ellen Huet and robot law professor Ryan Calo to explore the rise of Waymo vandalism and its roots in our collective anxiety over artificial intelligence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7694102813\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guests:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.ellenhuet.com/\">Ellen Huet\u003c/a>, Features writer at Bloomberg News\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://ischool.uw.edu/people/faculty/profile/rcalo\">Ryan Calo\u003c/a>, Professor of Law at University of Washington\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further reading:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-12-06/waymo-s-expansion-spurs-some-rage-against-the-self-driving-cars\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymo’s Expansion Provokes Anxieties of AI Takeover\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> – Ellen Huet, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloomberg\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://qz.com/robotaxi-tesla-uber-lyft-waymo-mobileye-texas-1851759608\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next big robotaxi push is almost here\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> — Harri Weber, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quartz \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/technology/2018/03/the-deadly-uber-self-driving-car-crash-is-just-the-beginning.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Courts Can Handle the Deadly Uber Self-Driving Car Crash. But that doesn’t mean the law is ready for autonomous vehicles.\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> — Ryan Calo, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Slate\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/good-robot-bad-robot-jo-ann-oravec/1141932639\">Good Robot, Bad Robot: Dark and Creepy Sides of Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, and AI\u003c/a> — Jo Ann Oravec, Professor at the University of Wisconsin\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do we look like influencers right now? Is this embarrassing to be walking up to a Waymo? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is me and my friend \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harri Weber\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> booking my first ride in a Waymo. It’s a self -driving car service. Some people also call them robo-taxis. Wait, I think I have to unlock it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, there we go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Morgan? No one’s going to respond. Waymo’s are, again, totally self -driving. There’s no human in the front seat. Hello from Waymo. As we get going, just give us one minute to cover a few… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I invited Harry because she’s also a tech journalist and she covers the future of cars. She recently wrote about the expansion of robo -taxis for courts. And also, we both had a craving for deli sandwiches from this one spot with terrible street parking. So why not take a Waymo? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s no one behind the wheel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is there a real need for the steering wheel? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Literally, I don’t see any purpose for it, but for whatever reason, there’s, you know, national laws require this steering wheel to still be there. It’s a little ghostly though, right? It’s nudging us around, it’s keeping us in the lane. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymo’s are something of a tourist attraction in California. My cousins always wanna take one whenever they come to visit me. But honestly, ever since Waymo’s launch a few months ago in Los Angeles, where Harri and I live, I’ve been pretty hesitant to take them. Part of it is, yeah, I don’t really trust a robot to drive me around, especially not through a very busy intersection in Koreatown during rush hour. But that’s where this car picked us up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These things aren’t perfect. Something could go wrong while we’re driving or while it’s moving us around. But Waymo’s claim based on its own data is that it is a lot safer than a human driver. I think that you’re probably more likely to find that they’re a nuisance than they are dangerous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But despite their great track record when it comes to safety, I feel like Waymo mishaps are always going viral. Like a couple of weeks ago, there was a video of a Waymo in San Francisco, ignoring a public works crew and driving straight through a sinkhole. And then there was a video of a guy in Arizona who called a Waymo to take him to the airport, but got stuck in a parking lot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m in a Waymo car. This car is just going in circles. I got my seatbelt on, I can’t get out the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waymos make me feel a little uneasy, but it’s really other people’s reactions to Waymos that makes me nervous about being in one. Even getting in, in front of that coffee shop, did you feel self -conscious? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it felt a little uncool. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I felt so deeply uncool getting in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think something flipped when Google was first developing a driverless car. I think there was actually like a cool factor going, or maybe I was just that uncool that I thought it was cool. But tech criticism has evolved a lot since then. And so now we’re in this car and it does feel a little bit like we are maybe class traitors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it’s not just the uncool factor. Public reaction to Waymos has turned violent. Like this incident in San Francisco, where a bunch of guys started spray painting a Waymo while a group of women was inside. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are you attacking us? Connecting to writer support. Call may be recorded. Oh my God. Oh my god! Holy shit! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is also a recent viral video of people swarming a Waymo in Los Angeles. One of the guys in the video so gracefully leaps into the air and drop kicks the passenger door right off the hinges, while another person beats the Waymo’s windshield with a ripped off piece of its own front bumper. To be clear, it doesn’t seem like any living person has been hurt in any of these incidents, unless you count getting a little car sick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But to a lot of people, including myself, I’ll be honest, something about seeing robots do a human task just does not feel right. And clearly, it triggers some deep-seated instinct to attack. So what is behind this recent outburst of aggression against Waymos? Is it just that destroying them makes really good content that’s bound to go viral? Or is it our collective anxiety over the state of tech right now? This is Close All Tabs. I’m \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morgan Sung\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. People are justifiably jaded against Silicon Valley and the idea of a robot takeover would make anyone nervous. But why take it out on Waymo? All right, we’re gonna kick this off like we usually do. A new tab, Waymo Vandalism. We’re gonna talk to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellen Huet\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. She covers technology and Silicon Valley and startup culture for Bloomberg, or as she puts it, all things at the intersection of tech and humans. And she wrote about how Waymo’s recent expansion provoked so -called AI anxiety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as long as these cars have been around in their various iterations, so probably over the last decade or so, people have reacted to them with suspicion and at times with violence. Like even back in 2018 when early Waymo vehicles were being tested in Arizona, people threw rocks at them, people like attacked the cars. Even if these cases are rare, it has been somewhat consistent that people react to robot cars at times with anger or violence or like attempting to kind of outsmart them. You know, there are early stories of people who figured out that you could confuse autonomous cars by putting a traffic cone on the hood of the car. Right, I’ve seen that. And I – Yeah, and like, there’s clearly some human impulse to try to almost like assert agency or control over this vehicle that, you know, in some existential sense is kind of a threat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to wonder how much product design plays a role in ensuring that people are more receptive to these cars. I mean, I’m thinking of, you know, that 2000s movie, Herbie Fully Loaded, how it’s like a cutesy little buggy. And if I saw that driving around, I wouldn’t want to, like, beat that up. But when I see, like, a Cybertruck, I’m like, oh, fight or flight, activated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I guarantee lots of designers have spent a lot of time and energy thinking about this question. I remember, it must have been a decade ago, you know, I was a tech reporter, I was working at Forbes and I was invited to take a test drive in an early autonomous car. And what I remember most is that those early cars were designed to look so cute. Like it was like a little gumdrop shaped car and it was white and like its headlights We’re kind of that like. oval shape to make it look like, you know, like these cute little cartoon eyes. And yeah, I guarantee that designers and engineers spent a lot of time thinking about how to make this threatening-ish technology seem as cute and approachable as possible. But yeah, Waymo’s are obviously like kind of just like a normal-looking car. My guess is it’s not coincidence that they’re all white. maybe people associate that with, like, sort of angelic energy or something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But let’s talk about what’s at the root of this feeling that a lot of people have when confronted with a robot doing a human job. That is a new tab. Ready? Waymo and AI anxiety. Okay, so a lot of this anger against Waymo’s is due to the very real risk of job loss as robo-taxis begin replacing human drivers. But it’s also bigger than that. AI is moving into a lot of areas besides cars. In her story about this spike in Waymo vandalism, Ellen cited University of Wisconsin professor Jo Anne Oravec, who said that a lot of people are just not really comfortable with the realization that something else is intelligent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think people sometimes direct their general anxiety about, like, job displacement from AI toward Waymos just because these are objects that exist in the physical world and that you can actually smash the windshield of a Waymo car in the way that you can’t quite attack ChatGPT, right? Like, I think in some sense they’re at a disadvantage by simply being, like, a physical object. And something that you are reminded of every time, you know, one drives by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the cars have also done things that are genuinely annoying. Like in San Francisco, there was this cluster of Waymo cars that had gotten trapped in a honking war with each other. So they were like up at the middle of the night, you know, it’s like 4:30 in the morning. And neighbors who were trying to sleep near wherever these cars are gathered were being woken up at night by the sound of all of these cars honking at each other. And like in the most nonsensical way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The term AI can mean a lot of different things. Autonomous vehicles like Waymo do use artificial intelligence. They use cameras to see, they’re trained to recognize objects and calculate the distance between them. But it’s pretty different from how a generative AI tool like ChatGPT works, or how other AI generators work to produce images, videos, and music. But to a lot of people, the anxiety is the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think what makes people have this reaction, regardless of what type of AI it is, is that these products are being designed to do actions and take on jobs and responsibilities that used to be solely the jurisdiction of humans, right? So it used to be like only people could see and drive and manipulate a car and now we can see that a human is not needed to do that. And it used to be that a human was needed to provide half of a conversation, you couldn’t have that, you know, without another person on the other side of the line. Now, that’s no longer true. So I think what we’re seeing is, even though the technology is different, in some cases and in some ways, the human reaction to it is the same. Because I think it’s provoking the same question of, well, where do I belong in this world where this thing that I used to do can be done by a non-human entity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s a Waymo ad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Waymo Advertisement: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, it’s finally happening. The robots, they’re coming. Maybe that’s a good thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And like, Waymo’s clearly playing into people’s concerns about the robots, but putting like this positive spin on it. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I mean, an ad like that makes me laugh because I just imagine, I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the marketing discussions that led to that copy because I’m sure they were like, guys, we have to address the fact that some people are scared of this, but let’s make it cheeky, let’s make it funny. There are researchers out there who study human-robot relations and some of the things that they explained to me were like these human-like. objects that can move with some intelligence in our world feel existentially unsettling to us because we don’t know where we fall in the pecking order anymore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And don’t forget, we’ve been consuming so much sci-fi about how super advanced robots can totally disrupt our way of life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>I, Robot: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robots don’t feel fear. They don’t feel anything. They don’t get hungry. They don’t sleep. I do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>M3gan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Megan, turn off. Are you sure? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>2001: A Space Odyssey: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open the pod bay doors, Hal. I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This pop culture fear of artificial intelligence and robots taking over has been around for a while, but it hasn’t been limited to the screen. Physical attacks on robots have been happening for over a decade. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A classic example is the story of Hitchbot. And the story of Hitchbot starts back in 2013 when a group of researchers decided they wanted to try to answer the question, can robots trust humans? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hitchbot will be depending on the kindness and the curiosity of strangers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So Hitchbot was this little humanoid robot that couldn’t really do much, but it was on a mission to hitchhike across Canada. It had a stocky, cylindrical body and goofy arms and legs made out of pool noodles. Its head had an LED panel with a little smiley face. Hitchbot couldn’t move on its own. It could only recognize human speech and engage in basic conversations, mostly to ask bystanders for help. It also had a GPS and took pictures of its surroundings every 20 minutes so that researchers could keep tabs on it. I mean, it was pretty adorable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And on its first few journeys, everything went fine. Like, people really got excited about this idea and wanted to contribute to helping the robot get from point A to point B. So Hitchbot traveled across Canada and traveled around Europe. And then in 2015, Hitchbot tried to do a cross-country trip across the United States and started in Boston. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Hitchbot only made it to Philadelphia, where it was tragically attacked and decapitated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the bench Hitchbot was killed on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh really? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know the story of Hitchbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it made it around the world and it died.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Philly Man 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It didn’t make it around the world because it died in Philadelphia. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe they wanted to reassert their power or dominance over a human-like object and feel secure in their place as humans. But yeah, I think the story of Hitchbot tells us a lot about the psychology of humans versus robots. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right. And that Waymos may not be ready for Philly yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ellen Huet:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seems possible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK, clearly, there’s something here about robots that makes us uncomfortable. People don’t always respond well to things that look a little too human or act kind of human, but aren’t quite human. So aside from making the cars cuter in hopes that people won’t attack them, is there anything else Waymo can do? When I scroll past one of these videos of someone spray painting one of the cars…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are you attacking us? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or blocking its way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Video Clip 4: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Get out of the way! Move! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or, worst case scenario, harassing someone inside, which did happen in San Francisco. With these videos, I’ve always wondered, why can’t the car just back up and drive away? Any human driver would. We’ll get into that and some other very thorny questions after this break. As this technology progresses, what are the implications of robots making their own decisions in these very high-stakes situations? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But that is a new tab. “The ethics of self-driving cars.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To dig into this, I called up \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan Calo\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He’s a legal scholar and a professor at the University of Washington School of Law. And his specialty? Robot law. So he had his own theory about what makes Waymo’s so attractive to vandalize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s the fact that they’re doing something transgressive where they’re, you know, they are of course vandalizing like an entity, an agent, but very much falls short of doing violence to a human being. Obviously these same people wouldn’t run up to a human being or a human cab driver and spray paint them. But the point of the matter is that, you know, there is this unease about these technologies, has to do with their novelty, has to do with their being too close to being these anthropomorphic agents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By anthropomorphic, Ryan means having human -like characteristics, even if it isn’t actually human. Yeah, I live in L.A., which has horrendous traffic, and so I watch a Waymo, try to make a U-turn, and get cut off at every possible opportunity, and I feel bad for it. What’s going on with that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s hard not to empathize, right? The fact is, is that human beings are quite bad at categorizing robots as either things or people. And the more anthropomorphic a technology is, the harder that is. So what’s really interesting about Waymo is, apparently, it’s associated as much with being a car as it is with being an entity. I always thought that if the vandalism were occurring inside the car, right? So sometimes people vandalize the interior of a Waymo because they’re just there by themselves, seemingly, Right? And it’s one thing to put a camera there, but if you were to put like an anthropomorphic robot driver in the Waymo that looked back at you when you get in to say, “Hey, where can I take you?” And also could be, was visible. Like when you saw the Waymo trying to make a U -turn, you saw like a person in there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s struggling. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever it was, it’s struggling. Or when somebody went to vandalize this thing, cause it to crash, you know, cause it to shut down, like vandalize it. And there’s this android in there looking at you that looks like a person. I think the outcome would be different. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan’s theory is that because Waymo’s don’t resemble any living thing, it’s easier to justify being violent. And sure, passengers would probably be creeped out by a robot doll in the driver’s seat, but maybe people would be discouraged from attacking it because there’s another human-ish thing there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s this concept called the uncanny valley. The deal is, it’s a valley, is that appreciation of the robot goes up and up and up and up and up and up and up, the more anthropomorphic it becomes, but then suddenly when it gets super close to actually like a human, it precipitously drops before coming back if it’s completely like a human, right? That’s the valley. Now, Waymo cars… They do not look like people, right? So they really are very far down on that curve. They’re more thrilling to vandalize than a mailbox. I just don’t see it happening with something that felt more like a person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah. You have written about the legal quandaries of self-driving cars, and when they first started hitting the road about five or so years ago, people were mostly worried about passenger safety and crashes. And it seems like companies like Waymo were maybe not so prepared for, like, the irate protesters?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to talk specifically about vandalism, this has messed up people working in AI and robotics for a long time, and so it shouldn’t really have surprised Waymo. I don’t know how one guards against it, right? Think about, Morgan, do you recall the time when Microsoft released that chatbot called Tay? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh my god. Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microsoft trains this chatbot early. This is pre-OpenAI and so on, and they released this Twitter-based chatbot that’s supposed to learn how to interact. Within an hour, there are these people, trolls on the Internet, getting it to say all kinds of racist and terrible things. They end up having to take the chatbot down. When the company was asked about “Why did this happen?” They’re like, “Well, we just didn’t anticipate that folks would do this,” unfortunately. The truth is about technology, especially like new emerging technology, you just don’t know how it’s going to play out in society. In fact, this leads some law professors like myself, to conclude that technology is a particularly difficult thing to regulate, because you don’t know how it’s going to play out in advance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Back in 2018, Ryan wrote an essay in Slate about whether the law was ready for self-driving cars. And in it, he refutes a common critique of this technology that has to do with the old philosophical dilemma known as the trolley problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trolley problem is this thought experiment about making decisions. You’ve got a train chugging along a track and it’s heading toward five people. But you, the decision maker, can flip a switch and direct the train to another track. Here’s the twist. There’s another single person stuck to that other track. So do you flip the switch? Save five people, but by making that decision, kill another? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the kind of thought experiment people love to refer to when puzzling over the morality of autonomous vehicles and other forms of AI. It’s the assumption that self -driving cars will have to make the same kinds of moral decisions. But Ryan says the engineers of these vehicles, and we as a public, should worry less about these philosophical hypotheticals and more about the practical real-life situations that these cars might face. Programming a moral compass is still up for debate. But programming object recognition is way more realistic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just imagine that a driverless car is always gonna be better than a person at avoiding a stroller in a parking lot. Always better because it’s better sensors, better response times, whatever. And the driverless car is also always gonna be better than a human being in avoiding a shopping cart, okay? But what happens if a driverless car encounters a shopping cart and a stroller at the same time. Imagine that the car confused about what to do and not able to differentiate between these two objects ends up making the wrong decision. Well, the headline reads, “Robot car kills baby to save groceries.” That’s the end of driverless cars in America, if that happens. So the thing that’s fascinating, with driverless car liability is it actually really matters the fact that driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn’t, even if they mess up less overall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, Ryan, as an expert in robot law, do you think driverless cars will have rights at some point, the way that humans do when they get into an accident? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ryan Calo:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What I will say is that we are very far from a situation where AI or robots will be able to claim rights the way that people have them. And even though some doomsayers claim that AI is going to wake up and kill everybody, you know, like the first time I see a presentation where like PowerPoint works perfectly, that will be when I worry about, you know, AV before AI. Like we’re just very far away from getting to that level of sophistication. Yeah but one day maybe, and at that time we’re really going to have to have an overhaul or a sea change in the law because suddenly there will be an entity that has rights and responsibilities but is not like us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The robot takeover is not going to happen anytime soon, but the friction between humans and these non-human counterparts, that’s only going to increase as AI creeps more and more into our lives. I’m gonna be honest, I thought that ride I took with my friend Harry was actually really nice. It was a nice temperature in there, the AC was going, there were lo -fi beats playing at such a reasonable volume. It didn’t smell weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s part of me that’s a little disappointed because, you know, I’m a little bit of a hater and so I want, I want to drive through cement. I want that to, I want to be the one who gets to, gets to like roll their eyes at these things that are sort of just. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inexplicably irksome. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are we getting Waymo pilled? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’re getting Waymo pilled. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I just don’t, I don’t wanna give in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Waymo Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pull the handle twice to exit. The first pull unlocks. The second opens the door. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, we’re pulling up to the curb now. There’s an older man at the crosswalk kind of just glaring this Waymo down and I feel really weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Harri Weber:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The deep shame, the shame! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to admit, it would have been great content if something wild did happen during my first Waymo ride. But like the majority of rides, it was pretty uneventful. It almost felt normal. And maybe that’s the real robot takeover. It’s the gradual, boring replacement of our everyday human interactions. For now, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morgan Sung\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our senior editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound Design by Maya Cueva. Original music by Chris Egusa with additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. Some members of the KQED Podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dust Silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. If you have feedback or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at closealltabs@kqed.org. Follow us on Instagram at CloseAllTabsPod. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Authorities in Southern California have issued evacuation warnings for parts of Los Angeles County that were scorched by wildfires last month, as heavy rains in the region increase the risks of dangerous mudslides in those areas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Artificial Intelligence is being touted as the next big advancement to take almost every industry into a new direction, and at one of the world’s largest agriculture expos, AI evangelists see the new tech as the next big advancement in farming.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AI Firms Hope to Deliver a New Era of Efficiency in Agriculture\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026700/world-ag-expo-kicks-off-in-tulare-county\">This year’s World Ag Expo\u003c/a> in California’s Tulare County is drawing thousands of visitors from across the globe to see cutting-edge farming and harvesting equipment, designed to make one of the the world’s oldest vocations easier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big features that many manufacturers are touting as the future of farming is equipment that uses AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From \u003ca href=\"https://www.flypyka.com/\">autonomous crop sprayers \u003c/a>to \u003ca href=\"https://farmwiselabs.com/\">AI powered weed pullers\u003c/a>, the tech is being lauded as the best new way that farmers can cut their costs, maximize efficiency and reduce reliance on environmentally harmful pesticides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Atmospheric Rivers are Raising Mudslide and Flood Risks throughout California\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Southern California grapples with the strongest storm system of the winter to hit the region, authorities have issues evacuation warnings in parts of \u003ca href=\"https://lacounty.gov/emergency/\">the Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, Malibu and other parts of LA County that were scorched in last months wildfires, due to risks of mudslides.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities have set up concrete barriers known as K-rails throughout the high risk areas in order to keep debris in the streets and away from homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said that the nature of the weather and mudslide risks mean that residents in areas under evacuation warnings need to be prepared to leave, and it is not clear when they would be allowed to return if the worst comes to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026874/bay-area-heavy-rain-flooding-landslides-thousands-without-power\">Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, an atmospheric river is pounding the region.\u003c/a> The California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate Division said that road flooding and vehicle spinouts have been prevalent throughout the region, as cars hit the road during rush hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1950931/map-pge-power-outages\">PG&E’s service map shows that power outages are happening throughout the Bay Area\u003c/a>, with the largest blackout impacting thousands of customers in South San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service said that the heavy rains and gusty winds are hitting residents in the Santa Cruz mountains the hardest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The atmospheric river could bring down as much as an inch of rain per hour in some parts of the Bay Area, as well winds reaching up to speeds of 60 to 70 miles per hour.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Authorities in Southern California have issued evacuation warnings for parts of Los Angeles County that were scorched by wildfires last month, as heavy rains in the region increase the risks of dangerous mudslides in those areas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Artificial Intelligence is being touted as the next big advancement to take almost every industry into a new direction, and at one of the world’s largest agriculture expos, AI evangelists see the new tech as the next big advancement in farming.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AI Firms Hope to Deliver a New Era of Efficiency in Agriculture\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026700/world-ag-expo-kicks-off-in-tulare-county\">This year’s World Ag Expo\u003c/a> in California’s Tulare County is drawing thousands of visitors from across the globe to see cutting-edge farming and harvesting equipment, designed to make one of the the world’s oldest vocations easier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big features that many manufacturers are touting as the future of farming is equipment that uses AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From \u003ca href=\"https://www.flypyka.com/\">autonomous crop sprayers \u003c/a>to \u003ca href=\"https://farmwiselabs.com/\">AI powered weed pullers\u003c/a>, the tech is being lauded as the best new way that farmers can cut their costs, maximize efficiency and reduce reliance on environmentally harmful pesticides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"tagline": "The flip side of gentrification, told through one town",
"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
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},
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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},
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"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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