{"id":213279,"date":"2026-02-13T22:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T03:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/13\/state-lawmakers-therapists-sound-the-alarm-on-ai-therapists\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T00:20:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T05:20:43","slug":"state-lawmakers-therapists-sound-the-alarm-on-ai-therapists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/13\/state-lawmakers-therapists-sound-the-alarm-on-ai-therapists\/","title":{"rendered":"State lawmakers, therapists sound the alarm on AI therapists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.live5news.com\/2026\/02\/14\/lawmakers-therapists-sound-alarm-ai-therapists\/\">State lawmakers, therapists sound the alarm on AI therapists<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.live5news.com\/2026\/02\/14\/lawmakers-therapists-sound-alarm-ai-therapists\/\">https:\/\/www.live5news.com\/2026\/02\/14\/lawmakers-therapists-sound-alarm-ai-therapists\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-13 22:50:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.live5news.com\">www.live5news.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) \u2014 A new bill at the state house would ban therapy delivered by artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A quick search of the internet and you can find dozens of AI chatbots, advertising themselves as free resources to help cope with everything from loneliness and depression to addiction and loss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The services are presented as well-intentioned, often free, tools for people looking for someone to talk to, but licensed professional counselor Kristen Groos, owner of the Connections Counseling Center on Daniel Island, says don\u2019t be fooled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAI often just tells you what you want to hear, which doesn\u2019t often help us grow,\u201d Groos said. \u201cThis is a constant issue in therapy for counselors in training, and I supervise counselors, and so what I\u2019m always telling them is therapy is a combination of comfort but also challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She says therapy is quintessentially a human experience, something robots and AI can\u2019t replicate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cHumans are necessary for therapy because it\u2019s inherently relational. Most people who deal with anxiety and depression, and at the root, it\u2019s a relational issue, so you need a relational solution,\u201d Groos said. \u201cThey [AI programs] have the theories, they have some of the basics, but they can\u2019t read body language, they can\u2019t read tone, and they don\u2019t develop a relationship with you the same way a human does. When a patient comes in or a client comes into my office, we\u2019re getting to know each other at truly a human level that a robot just can never duplicate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She says there\u2019s also an ethics concern. Therapists are bound by a strict code of ethics that heavily influences the types of notes and data they keep. Free, online AI therapists don\u2019t have any problem with storing all of the data you give them and even possibly selling that data to turn a profit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Some robots get it. For example, if you ask Amazon\u2019s smart hub Alexa if she could be your therapist, she will respond with, \u201cI am definitely not qualified to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.live5news.com\/2026\/02\/14\/lawmakers-therapists-sound-alarm-ai-therapists\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State lawmakers, therapists sound the alarm on AI therapists https:\/\/www.live5news.com\/2026\/02\/14\/lawmakers-therapists-sound-alarm-ai-therapists\/ Publish Date: 2026-02-13 22:50:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/gray-wcsc-prod.gtv-cdn.com\/resizer\/v2\/JRLWKNZM6FGG3DSNF4LL6GZYZY.jpg?auth=9f9dd59c9e156abe410ed248f4714a71e4c2cd8a326ebd3f6f3722192a5f2fdd&width=1200&height=600&smart=true","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213281,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213279\/revisions\/213281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}