Please Hold for a Licensed Human

An automated message — "Your matter has been resolved. If you believe it requires a licensed human, please remain on the line" — could serve a law firm or a clinic. This essay asks three separate questions when an AI agent acts without an intervening professional: who had authority to offer the service, who owed a duty to the person relying on it, and which insurance policy, if any, responds. It discusses Crosby's $5 million AI liability policy, the boundary between clerical playbook work and advice a client reasonably relies on, an LLM study of reasons for leaving lipid-lowering therapy unchanged, correlated errors across clinics, Wyoming's unlicensed-practice statute, and the history of state medical boards after Flexner. It argues for a written coverage analysis before giving an agent authority to act, and for a human who can inspect, sample, stop, and answer for the system.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-11-08
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24066606
Primary Topic
Digitalization, Law, and Regulation
Type
preprint
Controls
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Please Hold for a Licensed Human

Stanley Clark Newhall
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Digitalization, Law, and Regulation
preprint

Please Hold for a Licensed Human

Stanley Clark Newhall
preprint en

Abstract

An automated message — "Your matter has been resolved. If you believe it requires a licensed human, please remain on the line" — could serve a law firm or a clinic. This essay asks three separate questions when an AI agent acts without an intervening professional: who had authority to offer the service, who owed a duty to the person relying on it, and which insurance policy, if any, responds. It discusses Crosby's $5 million AI liability policy, the boundary between clerical playbook work and advice a client reasonably relies on, an LLM study of reasons for leaving lipid-lowering therapy unchanged, correlated errors across clinics, Wyoming's unlicensed-practice statute, and the history of state medical boards after Flexner. It argues for a written coverage analysis before giving an agent authority to act, and for a human who can inspect, sample, stop, and answer for the system.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Digitalization, Law, and Regulation
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