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Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#13

Post by hathawsh »

Here is what Illinois says:

https://idfpr.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/idfpr/news...

I get the impression that it is now illegal in Illinois to claim that an AI chatbot can take the place of a licensed therapist or counselor. That doesn't mean people can't do what they want with AI. It only means that counseling services can't offer AI as a cheaper replacement for a real person.

Am I wrong? This sounds good to me.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#14

Post by romanows »

kemotep wrote: post #5
metalman wrote: post #2

[flagged]

This is banning claiming your AI is a licensed therapist in the State of Illinois. If you have a court order to attend therapy for drug abuse related reasons you can’t just use ChatGPT according to this law.

Reading the text of the bill as a non-lawyer, it seems to also ban AI that provides therapy. I don't know if the AI needs to be explicitly labeled as therapy or if the content of chat could be decided to be therapy in a courtroom.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#16

Post by romanows »

hathawsh wrote: post #13

Here is what Illinois says: https://idfpr.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/idfpr/news... I get the impression that it is now illegal in Illinois to claim that an AI chatbot can take the place of a licensed therapist or counselor. That doesn't mean people can't do what they want with AI. It only means that counseling services can't offer AI as a cheaper replacement for a real person. Am I wrong? This sounds good to…

In another comment I wondered whether a general chatbot producing text that was later determined in a courtroom to be "therapy" would be a violation. I can read the bill that way, but IANAL.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#18

Post by kirubakaran »

create-username wrote: post #11
lukev wrote: post #8

Good. It's difficult to imagine a worse use case for LLMs.

Yes, there is. AI assisted homemade neurosurgery

If Travis Kalanick can do vibe research at the bleeding edge of quantum physics[1], I don't see why one can't do vibe brain surgery. It isn't really rocket science, is it? [2]

[1] https://futurism.com/former-ceo-uber-ai

[2] If you need /s here to be sure, perhaps it's time for some introspection

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#19

Post by perlgeek »

lukev wrote: post #8

Good. It's difficult to imagine a worse use case for LLMs.

Just using an LLM as is for therapy, maybe with an extra prompt, is a terrible idea.

On the other hand, I could image some more narrow uses where an LLM could help.

For example, in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, there are different methods that are pretty prescriptive, like identifying cognitive distortions in negative thoughts. It's not too hard to imagine an app where you enter a negative thought on your own and exercise finding distortions in it, and a specifically trained LLM helps you find more distortions, or offer clearer/more convincing versions of thoughts that you entered yourself.

I don't have a WaPo subscription, so I cannot tell which of these two very different things have been banned.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#20

Post by PeterCorless »

hathawsh wrote: post #13

Here is what Illinois says: https://idfpr.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/idfpr/news... I get the impression that it is now illegal in Illinois to claim that an AI chatbot can take the place of a licensed therapist or counselor. That doesn't mean people can't do what they want with AI. It only means that counseling services can't offer AI as a cheaper replacement for a real person. Am I wrong? This sounds good to…

Correct. It is more provider-oriented proscription ("You can't say your chatbot is a therapist.") It is not a limitation on usage. You can still, for now, slavishly fall in love with your AI and treat it as your best friend and therapist.

There is a specific section that relates to how a licensed professional can use AI:

Section 15. Permitted use of artificial intelligence.

(a) As used in this Section, "permitted use of artificial intelligence" means the use of artificial intelligence tools or systems by a licensed professional to assist in providing administrative support or supplementary support in therapy or psychotherapy services where the licensed professional maintains full responsibility for all interactions, outputs, and data use associated with the system and satisfies the requirements of subsection (b).

(b) No licensed professional shall be permitted to use artificial intelligence to assist in providing supplementary support in therapy or psychotherapy where the client's therapeutic session is recorded or transcribed unless:

(1) the patient or the patient's legally authorized representative is informed in writing of the following:

(A) that artificial intelligence will be used; and

(B) the specific purpose of the artificial intelligence tool or system that will be used; and

(2) the patient or the patient's legally authorized representative provides consent to the use of artificial intelligence.

Source: Illinois HB1806

https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus/FullText?GAID=18...

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