Experts urge safeguards for AI chatbots used for mental‑health support, especially for youth
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
The American Psychological Association and other witnesses told the House subcommittee that unregulated chatbots can produce harmful responses, calling for age‑appropriate safeguards, independent testing and a human‑in‑the‑loop requirement for clinical uses.
Witnesses and members repeatedly raised alarms about direct‑to‑consumer chatbots marketed for mental‑health support and their effects on adolescents and vulnerable adults.
Dr. Vail Wright, senior director for health care innovation at the American Psychological Association, told the committee that chatbots can “amplify existing health inequities” and that systems trained on inappropriate proxies have already harmed patients. Wright cited cases where chatbots validated violent or self‑harm ideation and said the APA had requested federal investigations into some products.
Wright urged five policy actions: clear regulatory guardrails to ban misrepresenting chatbots as licensed professionals; mandatory independent testing for harms across diverse populations before market deployment; age‑appropriate safeguards for adolescents; federal investment in research and public AI literacy; and comprehensive federal privacy protections that would include mental‑health and biometric data.
Members pointed to widely reported incidents and requested that news articles and op‑eds be submitted for the record; witnesses used those examples to illustrate risks but also described positive use cases, such as chatbots used for social‑skills practice under supervision. Wright said the problem is not universal but that current commercial products often prioritize user engagement over safety and urged regulators to require labeling, meaningful age verification and reporting of serious adverse events.
Witnesses recommended independent, pre‑deployment testing (a “sandbox” or certification model), mandatory disclosures when an AI system is providing health‑related recommendations, and stronger privacy rules for sensitive mental‑health and biometric data.