Nearly 6 in 10 New Jersey adults support regulating how artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots interact with users seeking mental health advice, according to a study conducted by the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, home of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, in collaboration with the Center for Health Services Research at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research.

The research, published in Health Affairs Scholar, explored data from a statewide poll of 1,568 adults contacted through the probability-based Rutgers-Eagleton/SSRS Garden State Panel from March 27 to March 30. The full sample has a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percentage points.

“Our findings indicate that most adults in New Jersey would support some state regulation of how AI chatbots respond to people in these moments and that support is even greater among people who are already using AI to ask about mental health,” said Stone, who also is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Nearly three-fourths of people who used AI on mental health topics in the past reported that they would support regulating the use of AI in the context of mental health, she said.