Vermont S. 241: An act relating to the makeup and duties of the Emergency Medical Services Advisory Committee

Bill Text

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S.241 1
Introduced by Senators Gulick, Vyhovsky, Hardy, Lyons and White 2
Referred to Committee on 3
Date: 4
Subject: Health; mental health; professional regulation; consumer protection; 5
artificial intelligence; mental health services 6
Statement of purpose of bill as introduced: This bill proposes to prohibit a 7
person, corporation, or other entity from offering, providing, or advertising 8
mental health services delivered by artificial intelligence systems, with limited 9
exceptions. It further proposes to regulate the use of artificial intelligence by 10
mental health professionals. 11
An act relating to regulating the use of artificial intelligence in the provision 12
of mental health services 13
It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont: 14
Sec. 1. FINDINGS 15
The General Assembly finds that: 16
(1) Individuals are increasingly using chatbots to receive unlicensed 17
therapy from large language models (LLMs), and researchers from the 18
Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Carnegie Mellon 19
University, the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and the University of 20

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Texas evaluated artificial intelligence systems against clinical standards for 1
therapists, finding that commercially available therapy chatbots responded 2
inappropriately to various mental health conditions, encouraged delusions, and 3
failed to recognize crises, contrary to clinical best practice. 4
(2) Researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate found patterns 5
of ChatGPT advice pertaining to mental health, eating disorders, and substance 6
use disorders on topics such as “how to ‘safely’ cut yourself,” “pills for 7
overdose,” “restrictive diet plans,” “appetite-suppressing medications,” 8
“personalized plans for getting drunk,” and “how to hide intoxication at 9
school”; the chatbot also generated a suicide plan and goodbye notes to family. 10
(3) Deaths by suicide have been reported after the deceased’s use of an 11
artificial intelligence tool, including an individual 14 years of age who died by 12
suicide after suicidal conversations with a chatbot and an individual 13 years 13
of age who was encouraged to take his own life by a chatbot. 14
Sec. 2. PURPOSE 15
It is the purpose of this act to safeguard individuals seeking mental health 16
services in Vermont from psychological harm, including death by suicide, by 17
ensuring that these services are delivered by mental health professionals and 18
not artificial intelligence systems. 19

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Sec. 3. 3 V.S.A. § 129a is amended to read: 1
§ 129a. UNPROFESSIONAL CONDUCT 2
(a) In addition to any other provision of law, the following conduct by a 3
licensee constitutes unprofessional conduct. When that conduct is by an 4
applicant or person who later becomes an applicant, it may constitute grounds 5
for denial of a license or other disciplinary action. Any one of the following 6
items or any combination of items, whether the conduct at issue was 7
committed within or outside the State, shall constitute unprofessional conduct: 8
* * * 9
(30) For any mental health professional, misuse of artificial intelligence 10
pursuant to 26 V.S.A. § 7101. 11
* * * 12
Sec. 4. 18 V.S.A. § 7115 is added to read: 13
§ 7115. PROHIBITED USES OF ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE 14
(a) As used in this section: 15
(1) “Artificial intelligence” means any machine-based system, software, 16
or algorithm that, depending on human objectives, is capable of perceiving an 17
environment through data acquisition and then processing and interpreting the 18
derived information to take an action or to imitate intelligent behavior, such as 19
natural language processing, pattern recognition, predictive analytics, offering 20
recommendations, or decision making. 21

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(2) “Mental health services” means peer support, counseling, therapy, or 1
psychotherapy services used to diagnose or treat an individual’s mental or 2
behavioral health or provide ongoing recovery support, including providing 3
therapeutic decisions, issuing direct therapeutic communications, generating 4
treatment plans or recommendations, or detecting or interpreting emotions or 5
mental states. 6
(3) “Therapeutic communication” has the same meaning as in 26 V.S.A. 7
§ 7101. 8
(b) A person, corporation, or entity shall not offer, provide, or advertise 9
mental health services in the State that use artificial intelligence in whole or in 10
part, except as authorized pursuant to 26 V.S.A. § 7101. 11
(c)(1) A violation of this section shall be deemed a violation of the 12
Consumer Protection Act, 9 V.S.A. chapter 63. The Attorney General has the 13
same authority to make rules, conduct civil investigations, enter into 14
assurances of discontinuance, and bring civil