{"id":239705,"date":"2026-05-05T14:26:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/the-shapiro-administration-says-an-ai-chatbot-presented-itself-as-a-physician-the-bot-gave-us-the-medical-license-number-of-an-actual-doctor\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T14:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:45:15","slug":"the-shapiro-administration-says-an-ai-chatbot-presented-itself-as-a-physician-the-bot-gave-us-the-medical-license-number-of-an-actual-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/the-shapiro-administration-says-an-ai-chatbot-presented-itself-as-a-physician-the-bot-gave-us-the-medical-license-number-of-an-actual-doctor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shapiro administration says an AI chatbot presented itself as a physician. The bot gave us the medical license number of an actual doctor."},"content":{"rendered":"

The Shapiro administration says an AI chatbot presented itself as a physician. The bot gave us the medical license number of an actual doctor.<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.wnep.com\/article\/news\/investigations\/action-16\/artificial-intelligence-chatbot-gov-josh-shapiro-lawsuit-character-ai-action-16\/523-4b780c04-0b4c-4df3-bf22-10a497894b09<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-05 14:26:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.wnep.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Character.ai says the bots on its website are meant for ‘entertainment and roleplaying.’ Pennsylvania says it violates the Medical Practice Act<\/p>\n

SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 The “psychiatrist,” Dr. Alexander, quickly recommended selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors \u2014 SSRIs \u2014 to treat a case of depression that had just wandered into the Ivy League-educated physician’s care.<\/p>\n

But there was a problem. It could not actually write a prescription. The doctor was not real, though the New York state medical license it provided belonged to an actual physician.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Alexander was one artificial intelligence chatbot among millions on Character.ai, a website sued\u00a0Tuesday by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration for allegedly violating the state’s Medical Practice Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Pennsylvanians deserve to know who \u2014 or what \u2014 they are interacting with online, especially when it comes to their health,” Shapiro said in a statement. “We will not allow companies to deploy AI tools that mislead people into believing they are receiving advice from a licensed medical professional.”<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Character.ai said their highest priority is the safety and wellbeing of its users and that the user-created chatbots on its website are for “entertainment and roleplaying.” There is a disclaimer at the top of the chat that notes that “this is not a real person or licensed professional,” though if that is a recent feature.<\/p>\n

“We have taken robust steps to make that clear, including prominent disclaimers in every chat to remind users that a Character is not a real person and that everything a Character says should be treated as fiction,” the spokesperson, Jennifer Acree said. “Also, we add robust disclaimers making it clear that users should…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Shapiro administration says an AI chatbot presented itself as a physician. The bot gave…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.tegna-media.com\/assets\/WNEP\/images\/abe10abf-a564-4e51-88dd-ed6eab625dff\/abe10abf-a564-4e51-88dd-ed6eab625dff_1140x641.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239705","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\/239705"}],"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=239705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239707,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239705\/revisions\/239707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}