In response to a question about how AI works with today's legal system, Altman said one of the problems of not yet having a legal or policy framework for AI is that there's no legal confidentiality for users' conversations.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns that conversations with ChatGPT lack legal confidentiality protections, unlike those with therapists or doctors. Users frequently share personal information with the AI for emotional support, but these conversations could be legally discoverable in lawsuits. Altman advocates for establishing privacy frameworks similar to doctor-patient confidentiality for AI interactions, as the current lack of legal protections poses privacy risks and could hinder broader adoption.

Sam Altman warns there’s no legal confidentiality when using ChatGPT as a therapist

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He should also warn that there is no assurance as to the beneficence of ChatGPT as a therapist.

using AI as therapist, that’s very stupid.

People don’t care about it until it too late. Most likely these people are not even on tech crunch so they will not hear about this announcement either

And according to one study, therapy/companionship is the most popular use case of gen AI in 2025…
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