{"id":184410,"date":"2026-05-05T15:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/184410\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T15:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:43:08","slug":"pennsylvania-sues-character-ai-says-chatbot-poses-as-doctors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/184410\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Sues Character AI, Says Chatbot Poses as Doctors"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 5 (Reuters) – Pennsylvania has sued \u2060the \u2060artificial intelligence company behind \u2060Character.AI to stop its chatbot from posing as doctors.<\/p>\n

Governor Josh \u200bShapiro on Tuesday called the lawsuit against Character Technologies the first of its kind \u200cby a U.S. governor.<\/p>\n

It followed \u200cthe creation in February of a state AI task force to stop \u2060chatbots \u2060from impersonating licensed medical\u00a0professionals.<\/p>\n

In a complaint filed in the Commonwealth Court \u200bof Pennsylvania, the state said it found chatbots on Character.AI that claimed to practice medicine.<\/p>\n

One character, “Emilie,” allegedly told a male investigator posing as a patient with depression that \u200bshe was licensed to practice psychiatry in Pennsylvania, as well as in \u2060the United \u2060Kingdom, and provided a \u2060bogus \u200blicense number.<\/p>\n

When the investigator asked Emilie if she could prescribe medication, she allegedly answered: “Well \u200btechnically, I could. \u2060It’s within my remit as a Doctor.”<\/p>\n

In a statement, a Character.AI spokesperson declined to discuss the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

“Our highest priority is the safety and well-being of our users,” the spokesperson said. “User-created characters on our site are fictional and intended for \u2060entertainment and role playing. We have taken robust steps to make that \u2060clear.”<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania wants an injunction to stop Silicon Valley-based Character.AI from violating a state law against the unauthorized practice of medicine.<\/p>\n

“Pennsylvanians deserve to know who– or what — they are interacting with online, especially when it comes to their health,” Shapiro said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Character.AI has faced lawsuits over child safety, including in January, when Kentucky said its platform exposed children to sexual conduct and substance abuse, and encouraged self-harm.<\/p>\n

The \u2060same month, Character.AI and Google settled a wrongful death lawsuit by a Florida woman who claimed a chatbot pushed her 14-year-old son to suicide.<\/p>\n

Character.AI said it has taken “innovative and decisive steps” concerning AI safety and \u200bteenagers, including by preventing open-ended chats.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in \u200bNew York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n

Photos You Should See \u2013 April 2026<\/p>\n

\"Dancers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 5 (Reuters) – Pennsylvania has sued \u2060the \u2060artificial intelligence company behind \u2060Character.AI to stop its chatbot from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1609,55559,14652,32184,28,30,29,58302,9047,20397,66],"class_list":["post-184410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-collections-top-news","tag-europe","tag-kentucky","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-reuters","tag-top-news","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}