https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/30/ai-psychologist-chatbot-00132682

New AI-generated digital replicas of real experts expose an unnerving policy gray zone. Washington wants to fix it, but it’s not clear how.

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As vice director of Tsinghua University’s Positive Psychology Research Center in China, Zhao now researches the same branches of psychology his graduate adviser had pioneered. The AI Seligman his team had built — originally trained on 15 of Seligman’s books — is a way to bring the benefits of positive psychology to millions in China, Zhao told his old teacher.

Similarly, when Perel the human wasn’t available, a public version of the AI software driving ChatGPT and Perel’s podcasts allowed Furmansky to build the next best thing. He saw the same potential in AI that Zhao did: a means to access the knowledge locked away in the brains of a few really brilliant people.

Furmansky said he and Perel’s team were on cordial terms regarding AI Perel, and had spoken about pursuing something more collaborative. Contacted by POLITICO, Perel’s representative said Perel has not “endorsed, encouraged, enabled Furmansky or waived any of her rights to take legal action against Furmansky.” They declined to provide further details about her stance on the AI Perel.

Others don’t necessarily share Seligman’s sanguine views about AI’s capacity to replicate the vocal and intellectual traits of real people — particularly without their knowing consent. In June, a shaken mother recounted the harrowing details of a scammer who used AI to mimic her child’s voice at a Senate hearing. In October, anxious artist unions beseeched the Federal Trade Commission to regulate the creative industry’s data-handling practices, pointing to the dystopian possibility of vocalists, screenwriters and fashion models competing against AI models that look and sound like them.

Even Wu — a seasoned scholar of America’s complicated tech economy — held a straightforward view on the unsanctioned use of AI to impersonate humans. “My instinct is strong and immediate on it,” Wu said. “I think it’s unethical and I think it is something close to body snatching.”

Lawmakers are also worried about who, ultimately, will reap the tangible and intangible profits of American intellectual property in the age of AI. “Neither Big Tech nor China should have the right to benefit from the work of American creators,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), another co-sponsor of the NO FAKES Act, in an email response to Seligman’s story.