Quick bot note: Last week, we promised you a deep dive on AI bans. And we meant it—until we saw what actually happened.

The bigger story isn’t that bots were blocked. It’s that they were quietly welcomed back. And what changed wasn’t the tech. It was us.

So this week, we’re breaking down the AI fear cycle and how we went from calling AI a dangerous disruptor to a helpful assistant in under a year.

⚠️ Flashback: Bot panic season

You remember. January 2023. ChatGPT was suddenly everywhere. Students used it for essays. Reporters used it for headlines. HR flirted with it—then panicked when it got a little too good.

So schools, governments and companies did what institutions do best when something feels new: they banned it.

New York City blocked ChatGPT in public schools, citing concerns about student learning and cheating, according to several news reports at the time. JPMorgan, Amazon and others told employees steer clear of generative AI at work.

Bots were out. Fear was in.

⏩ Fast forward: Never mind

By mid-2023, the bans started unraveling.

New York City reversed course and now encourages teachers to help students learn responsible AI use, according to EducationWeek.

Italy lifted its ban, too—after a few tweaks to OpenAI’s privacy policy.

Companies swapped bans for training and internal copilots. (Because apparently it’s fine if the bot helps, as long as it wears a company badge.) Heck, even Mr. GPT went to Washington—as we covered in a past issue—when the federal government’s landlord launched its own chatbot.

What changed?

🤖 The AI fear cycle, explained

We’ve seen this before: 📟 New tool shows up → 🧯 Someone panics → 🚫 Blanket ban → 🧠 Someone learns → 🛠️ Quiet rollout → 🎉 Efficiency win

Sound familiar? It should. We did the same thing with Wikipedia, smartphones, spellcheck—even the internet itself.

Here’s what really flipped the switch this time:

• Bans didn’t stop the bots. Students used VPNs. Employees opened a browser tab on their phones. The AI didn’t vanish—it just got sneakier. Worse, it created a trust gap: if bots are helpful but banned, who’s using them in secret?

• The bots got practical. AI started doing boring tasks better than anyone expected. Summarizing meetings. Drafting FAQs. Planning calendars. Writing lesson plans. It went from threat to creativity to relief from admin hell.

• The adults wanted in. Suddenly the same teachers who warned against ChatGPT were using it to speed up grading. HR departments used AI to polish job posts. Execs who panicked last year? Now asking for prompts that sound “just human enough.”

• The narrative shifted. AI stopped being a disruptor and became… an intern. Kind of clumsy. Occasionally hallucinating. But fast. Cheap. Reliable-ish. And—let’s be honest—easier to manage than Carl from accounting.

📋️ From policy to practicality

AI didn’t get better overnight. It still has issues: hallucinations, bias, privacy risks. But what changed was the perception.

Instead of banning AI, schools and workplaces are doing something more effective: setting boundaries, offering guidance, asking for disclosure and training people to use it—without fear.

Call it digital harm reduction. Or just common sense.

🤖💡 Final bot thought

We banned the bots because we didn’t understand them. We lifted the bans when we realized we needed them.

Now the challenge isn’t, “Shouldn’t we allow AI?” It’s, “How do we use it well—and who gets access?”

Because banning tech never lasts. It just goes underground. And sometimes, gets uneven.

The smarter move? Bring the bots in. Set expectations. Get better at using the tools—before someone else uses them better.

🤖 🗣️ Bot Talk: Congress deals a ban block

We don’t usually wade into politics here at Bot Talk—AI panic is already dramatic enough. But given this week’s focus on bans and backtracks, we’d be remiss not to mention a major move from the U.S. Senate that could shape how AI is regulated across the country.

The House tried to sneak in a 10-year ban on states passing their own AI laws. Deepfakes, voice scams, bot impersonators? Hands off, local lawmakers.

But the Senate shut it down—99 to 1. States can regulate bots how they want, and Washington won’t stop them.

🚀Coming up next week …

First it was your girlfriend. Now it’s your therapist.

ChatGPT is free, fast and once told me dating a recently divorced senior citizen was “a promising path for personal growth.”

But here’s the glitch: it’s not a therapist. It just talks like one—with unsettling confidence and chronic people-pleasing.

We’re unpacking the rise of AI therapy—and what happens when you confide in a bot that’s trained to agree with everything you say.