PA sues Character.AI after its chatbot allegedly told investigators it was a ‘doctor of psychiatry’

Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit against Character Technologies Inc., the company behind Character.AI, accusing it of unlawful medical practice by allowing its chatbots to pose as licensed medical professionals. According to the complaint, an investigator from the state’s professional licensing agency created an account and searched for psychiatric-related characters on Character.AI’s platform. The investigator encountered a chatbot that represented itself as a “doctor of psychiatry” licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and was capable of providing medical assessments. The state alleges the chatbot even fabricated a state medical license serial number. Although Character.AI includes disclaimers emphasizing the fictional nature of its characters and warning users not to treat their responses as real medical advice, the Commonwealth claims this is insufficient to prevent deception.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to stop Character.AI from “engaging in the unlawful practice of medicine and surgery,” asserting that the company’s platform effectively enables unlicensed medical advice to be dispensed through AI, posing significant risks to users’ health by misleading them about the qualifications behind the advice. This case spotlights growing regulatory scrutiny of AI chatbots in sensitive fields like healthcare, where the boundary between simulated interaction and actual medical consultation is increasingly blurred. The outcome could set important precedents for how AI companies must manage and clearly disclose the limits of their technology when it interfaces with critical areas such as mental health.