Washington Post [no paywall]: “The administration is laying the groundwork for chatbots that can diagnose illness and prescribe medicine, but physicians say AI can introduce more problems…Today, chatbots can only legally offer medical guidance with a disclaimer attached: Neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, nor any state licensing board, allows a fully autonomous AI to practice medicine. But Trump officials — citing concerns about the prevalence of chronic disease and issues such as the shortage of rural doctors — are driving a significant shift. They have backed a controversial three-month-old pilot program in Utah that allows AI chatbots to refill prescriptions instantly. (Currently humans oversee the chatbot’s decisions, but there are plans to make the program fully autonomous). The Cicero Institute, a think tank funded by right-leaning tech entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale, is pushing a bill that would allow states to create similar pilots. Officials are taking steps to integrate AI into the health care system. The administration plans to offer more than $50 million in research awards to developers of conversational AI software that can deliver cardiovascular care, so that when a person calls a medical provider with symptoms of a heart attack, a chatbot might field the call. (Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, and several top-tier universities are providing support to the program.)..”