How Budding Laws On AI And Mental Health Could Go The Route Of ‘Federal Floor, State Ceiling’

In today’s column, I examine how all those budding laws about AI and mental health could potentially be recalibrated on a so-called “federal floor, state ceiling” framework. Right now, each state chooses whether to pass AI laws about chatting with AI for mental health purposes. Depending upon which state you are in at the time of an AI mental health chat, there is a possibility that the AI is supposed to be fully unrestricted or prohibitively restricted regarding what it says to you.

In a regulatory framework known as having a federal floor and a state-level ceiling, Congress specifies the minimum set of legal protections for a given topic (the floor), while the states can enact stricter requirements if they wish to do so (up to some maximum known as a ceiling). This framework has been used on other nationwide issues. The idea is that you would know that at least some minimum level of law exists and that the states would possibly opt to go further than that law. Would this work for the AI and mental health realm? Is it viable, and if so, what would it look like? Those are crucial questions that I will address.

Let’s talk about it. This analysis of AI breakthroughs is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here).

AI And Mental Well-Being

As a quick background, I’ve been extensively covering and analyzing a myriad of facets regarding the advent of modern-era AI that produces mental health advice and performs AI-driven therapy. This rising use of AI has principally been spurred by the evolving advances and widespread adoption of generative AI. For an extensive listing of my well over one hundred analyses and postings, see the link here and the link here.