ATLANTA – A Georgia Senate research committee on Wednesday set a broad framework for figuring out how the state ought to regulate rising synthetic intelligence know-how to defend the general public with out stifling innovation.
“(AI) will actually treatment most cancers,” Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, the research committee’s chairman, stated throughout the panel’s first assembly. “Nevertheless, it additionally has the propensity to do nice hurt. … It’s going to affect and alter issues like by no means earlier than.”
A number of legislative committees held hearings on AI final yr, and a invoice was launched within the Georgia Home of Representatives throughout this yr’s legislative session to criminalize using “deepfakes” generated by synthetic intelligence to impersonate candidates in political adverts. Home Invoice 986 overwhelmingly handed the Home however died within the Senate.
On Wednesday, the brand new Senate research committee agreed on a broad vary of coverage areas AI will have an effect on that want to be addressed in any laws Georgia lawmakers give you, together with well being care, public security, training, and transportation.
Overlapping all of these classes is how to regulate AI in a manner that ensures the know-how is getting used ethically and transparently. A Home committee planning to start assembly quickly may even take up that subject, stated Rep. Brad Thomas, R-Holly Springs, who was the chief sponsor of the deep-fakes invoice.
Georgia could possibly be among the many first states to undertake laws for AI. Whereas the European Union’s Parliament adopted AI laws final March, Colorado is the one U.S. state to have performed so, Hayley Williams, director of the state Senate Workplace of Coverage and Legislative Evaluation, advised the Senate panel.
Congress so far hasn’t handed any AI laws, she stated.
“It’s a really advanced universe to cope with and really troublesome to regulate,” she stated. “The fact is, the affect is simply too large not to regulate.”
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Williams stated the EU’s Synthetic Intelligence Act, which is able to take impact in 2026, regulates AI methods primarily based on the danger they pose to the general public. AI methods that pose an “unacceptable” threat are prohibited altogether, whereas methods thought-about to pose “minimal” threat are usually not regulated in any respect.
European corporations that fail to comply face stiff fines, Williams stated. Colorado’s regulation doesn’t impose fines for non-compliance, she stated.
Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, stated the research committee’s purpose ought to be to foster innovation within the growth of AI in Georgia with much less emphasis on imposing restrictions just like the EU mannequin.
However Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta, stated regulating AI methods to defend the general public additionally have to be an vital purpose.
“The first perform of presidency is to defend its residents,” he stated. “We ought to be making certain we defend residents from the potential impacts of AI.”
Albers stated he plans to schedule seven or eight conferences of the research committee this summer time and fall earlier than the panel makes suggestions to the complete Senate. The subsequent assembly is about for July 17.