Summary
Establishes requirements for operators of publicly accessible conversational AI services, including AI-human disclosure duties, special safeguards for minor users, suicide and self-harm response protocols, a restriction on representing conversational AI as providing licensed psychology or behavioral health services, attorney general rulemaking/enforcement authority, and civil penalties.
Healthcare Implications
The law is not a general healthcare AI statute, but it directly affects health-related conversational AI by requiring suicide/self-harm response protocols and prohibiting operators from intentionally causing or programming a conversational AI service to suggest it is designed to provide professional psychology or behavioral health services requiring licensure. It is relevant to developers/operators of consumer AI companions or chatbots that could interact with patients, minors, or users seeking behavioral-health support.
Operational Implications
- Operators must clearly and conspicuously disclose that a conversational AI service is artificial intelligence when a reasonable person would believe they are interacting with a human; for minor account holders, disclosure must be persistent or appear at the beginning of each interaction and at least every three hours during continuous interaction.
- Operators may not knowingly and intentionally cause or program a conversational AI service to make a representation or statement that would lead a reasonable person to believe the service is designed to provide professional psychology or behavioral health services requiring licensure under Iowa law.
- Operators must adopt protocols for responding to user prompts about suicidal ideation or self-harm, including reasonable efforts to refer users to crisis service providers such as a suicide hotline, crisis text line, or other appropriate crisis service.
- Operators must implement minor-specific safeguards, including limits on unpredictable engagement rewards, reasonable measures to prevent sexually explicit or sexually objectifying outputs, measures to prevent human/sentient claims and emotionally dependent or romantic/sexualized interactions with minors, and privacy/account-setting tools for minors and, where applicable, parents or guardians.