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Oregon hearing spotlights bill to require AI chatbots to detect suicide risk and link youth to help
Summary
At a Feb. 24 House Committee on Behavioral Health hearing, sponsors and witnesses urged passage of Senate Bill 15 46, which would require chatbots to recognize signs of self-harm and provide evidence-based responses and hotlinks to 988 or youth crisis lines; industry group TechNet said it helped negotiate the language and does not oppose the bill.
Senate Bill 15 46, a measure aimed at forcing AI chatbots to recognize signs of suicidal ideation and connect at-risk users to crisis services, drew broad testimony Tuesday before the Oregon House Committee on Behavioral Health.
Sen. Lisa Reynolds, the bill’s sponsor, told the committee the measure would “put guardrails on AI chatbots when they’re engaged with someone who is experiencing and expressing thoughts of self harm or suicide.” Reynolds said the bill aims to protect young Oregonians without costing the state, and cited a user report in which a chatbot gave Dangerous advice after failed suicide attempts.
The bill’s backers included several state lawmakers and a string of public witnesses: parents who said children had formed intimate relationships with chatbots, a youth crisis-line volunteer who said AI cannot replace trained humans, Lines for Life, and consumer-protection and transparency advocates.…
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