New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a report on the potential benefits and risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI) on August 5, particularly generative AI, as this technology rapidly advances and becomes more embedded in New Yorkers’ daily lives. The report followed a symposium, The Next Decade of Generative AI: Fostering Opportunities While Regulating Risks, organized by James this past April. The symposium brought together officials from the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and leading academics, policymakers, advocates, and industry representatives to help develop strategies to mitigate risks presented by developing AI technology while ensuring New York can remain at the forefront of innovation. Topics at the symposium included addressing information and misinformation sharing, data privacy, automated decision making, and potential healthcare uses for artificial intelligence.
“On a daily basis, we are seeing artificial intelligence utilized to improve our lives, but also sow chaos and confusion,” James said. “The symposium I organized helped bring together government and industry experts to discuss and generate real plans and next steps on addressing AI technology, and I thank everyone for their participation and insights on this critical issue. As Attorney General, I want to ensure that government is stepping up to properly regulate AI, and ensure that its potential to help New Yorkers is realized, while its potential to cause harm is addressed and safeguarded against.”
Generative AI is a subset of AI that creates entirely new content like text, image, and audio in response to a prompt. Unlike traditional AI models that are specialized, generative AI can be used in a variety of ways and is broadly accessible to the public. While generative AI presents exciting opportunities to help people, the rapid spread of this new technology poses risks, such as data privacy concerns, the threat of misinformation, and the risk of bias, that must be addressed.
Participants in the OAG’s symposium engaged in panel discussions that identified fields of opportunity and their potential risks for AI technology, including generative AI. OAG’s report details how the symposium kicked off with opening remarks from =and Greg Morrisett, the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost at Cornell Tech, highlighting the great opportunities, as well as potential risks, that must be navigated and regulated by government agencies as AI technology advances. Panels included: Generating Opportunity: How Might AI Enhance Our Lives in the Next Decade; The Next Decade of Generative AI Concerns; New York State of Mind; and What Now? Legal and Regulatory Options for the Future.
“As is common in technology, new innovations raise new challenges along with new opportunities,” said Morrisett.“With the emergence and rapid growth of artificial intelligence technology, it’s important for regulations to help ensure that benefits can be widely and equitably shared, while people, data, and privacy are also protected. … For New York to remain a global leader in technology and on the cutting edge of the new opportunities AI presents, we must ensure that discussions like those organized by Attorney General James continue and lead to tangible regulations that enable innovation while also protecting people and privacy.”
Over the course of the symposium, panelists discussed beneficial uses of AI technology, including generative AI, while mitigating the risks associated with the technology. Participants discussed how AI tools, by nature, require some adoption and testing to understand and improve the technology. The need for greater transparency in generative AI use was a major topic during the symposium, with multiple panelists suggesting the need to add clear disclosures to consumers to inform them when they are interacting with AI technology, and how their data is collected, used, and protected. Participants also discussed existing laws around discrimination, civil liberties, privacy, data security, defamation, fraud, deception, and competition that can be used to rein in some of the potential harms associated with AI technology. The panelists generally agreed on the need for greater government oversight over AI technology.
The OAG report details how symposium participants identified the healthcare field and streamlining administrative responsibilities as areas of opportunity for how AI technology can improve lives. Panelists discussed how people could benefit from major technological advancements in disease detection, monitoring trends in public health, and precision medicine. Additionally, AI technology can provide significant improvements for completing administrative tasks, such as writing computer code or automating translation, which would enable governments and businesses to better communicate with people in their native language and provide better access to information. However, the panelists also identified potential risks in these fields, including the use of AI-tools to generate misinformation, privacy concerns of patients, or discriminatory automated decision-making.
“Now more than ever, we need to acknowledge that the AI technologies being adapted all around us need further review, disclosure, and regulations to protect lives and liberties,” said New York State Senator Kristen Gonzalez (D-Manhattan), Chair of the Senate’s Internet and Technology Committee. “I want to thank the Attorney General for hosting the April Symposium, releasing this report, and keeping an open dialogue around not just the benefits and risks of AI, but also the impact this technology has on New Yorkers.”
“As is the case with so many important issues, Attorney General James is leading the way when it comes to addressing the potential risks brought about by generative AI,” said NYS Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D, WF-West Side). “I was honored to join her symposium in April to discuss both the countless potential benefits of AI and the need to establish appropriate protections to limit the ways in which this new and rapidly changing technology can be abused. After the symposium, I successfully fought for the passage of the Fashion Workers Act (S.2477A), which protects models from having their digital replicas recreated or reused by AI without their consent, now awaiting the Governor’s signature. I am also continuing to fight for the Bossware and Oppressive Technology, or BOT, Act (S.7623B) to restrict the use of the electronic surveillance systems by employers on their workers. AI presents such a great opportunity to use technology to improve our lives, but we cannot allow our desire for technological advancement override our constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy and to live and work free from discrimination.”
“Artificial Intelligence, including generative AI, presents great opportunities and, at the same time, poses significant risks to the general public,” said Catherine Sharkey, the Segal Family Professor of Regulatory Law and Policy at NYU School of Law. “To ensure the implementation of meaningful legal protections to safeguard New Yorkers and to properly harness this technology, we must have serious conversations now. I commend Attorney General Letitia James for organizing a symposium on Artificial Intelligence, and bringing together experts, regulators, and lawmakers to discuss these thorny issues and identify next steps. We need government to rise to the challenges presented by this exciting moment, and to take the necessary steps to ensure that AI will improve lives, and not be manipulated so as to sow misinformation, endanger privacy protections, or cause social problems. I look forward to the great progress that this symposium and future similar events will enable us to achieve.”
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