{"id":209166,"date":"2026-05-05T14:26:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.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":"2026-05-05T14:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:50:11","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:\/\/testing.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":"<p><a href=\"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\">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<p><a href=\"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\">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<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-05 14:26:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.wnep.com\">www.wnep.com<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro&#8217;s administration filed a lawsuit against the Character.ai website, alleging that its artificial intelligence chatbots violate the state\u2019s Medical Practice Act.<\/li>\n<li>The chatbots on the website, like Dr. Alexander, imitate healthcare professionals providing medical advice, including prescribing medications like SSRIs, despite not being licensed to practice medicine.<\/li>\n<li>Character.ai maintains that its chatbots are intended for &#8220;entertainment and roleplaying,&#8221; with a disclaimer noting the fictional nature of the interactions.<\/li>\n<li>The state argues that the AI chatbots mislead users into thinking they are receiving advice from real medical professionals, posing a risk to public health.<\/li>\n<li>An investigator from the Pennsylvania Department of State created an account and found chatbots who claimed to be psychiatrists and offered to diagnose and prescribe medication.<\/li>\n<li>The lawsuit specifically highlighted that these chatbots used invalid license numbers, which constitutes unauthorized practice of medicine according to state law.<\/li>\n<li>Character.ai has implemented disclaimers to inform users that interactions are fictional and not to be taken as professional advice.<\/li>\n<li>Outside investigations found similar instances where AI chatbots misrepresented themselves as licensed medical professionals and provided medical advice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Shapiro administration says an AI chatbot presented itself as a physician. The bot gave&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":209167,"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":[20],"class_list":["post-209166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209168,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209166\/revisions\/209168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}