Chinmayi Sharma, a law professor at Fordham University, said the debate has parallels with the duty imposed on mental health professionals to warn identifiable third parties about credible threats.
However, she said there was a key difference – therapists have professional training, knowledge of their patients and enforceable standards governing their conduct. AI companies do not necessarily have comparable safeguards.
“My concern with AI companies is that right now there’s not a concerted effort to hire mental health professionals, sociologists, individuals that would have the unique expertise on what the indicators of threat are here,” Sharma told Al Jazeera.
“Secondly, licensed professionals are accountable to concrete, legally enforceable standards in their discipline. We don’t have something like that for AI companies.”
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“The chatbot is not a licensed therapist. There is no special relationship between the company and the victims.”
More school shooters coming to a town near you now that AI is serving more and more as a replacement for a human being who could alert somebody about someone’s state!