(TNS) — When San Francisco Supervisor Hilary Ronen first began asking round about what synthetic intelligence packages town makes use of, she was shocked to seek out out nobody particular person or division knew.
That’s the reason Ronen is planning to introduce laws Tuesday on the Board of Supervisors requiring town’s Division of Expertise to maintain a public checklist of the place and the way AI expertise is used throughout town and county, and the explanations for it.
“That is principally only a transparency invoice,” Ronen advised the Chronicle. “We’re not prohibiting any makes use of” of AI.
The laws would additionally require an affect evaluation of any AI packages town is utilizing to find out their potential to displace staff, make biased choices, create safety dangers and intrude on privateness, amongst different issues.
Ronen, who’s termed out after representing District 9 for eight years, stated these assessments would come with the enter of labor and privateness consultants. The laws would additionally direct town’s Division of Expertise to write down requirements for purchasing new AI packages.
Ronen acknowledged town’s decentralized IT methods make it troublesome to trace what expertise town is utilizing, AI or not.
San Francisco’s lately appointed CIO, Michael Makstman, advised the Chronicle in a latest interview that having greater than 50 metropolis departments with their very own IT methods and employees that don’t report back to him was among the many greatest challenges he faces in his new function.
“There isn’t a gavel to bang on the desk and demand that everyone come to consideration” if the laws passes and he’s charged with implementing it, Makstman advised the Chronicle in an interview discussing the laws. “The very best software is to assist individuals perceive why we’re doing this, what will occur and the way they are going to be concerned,” he stated.
He stated the invoice is an outgrowth of town’s AI working group, which has been learning the expertise and helped produce the mayor’s pointers on how metropolis staff ought to use it.
Makstman stated he plans to rent an rising applied sciences director to assist with the AI-related workload. So far as taking enter on the impact of AI packages, Makstman stated he’s nonetheless determining what these boards will appear like, and whether or not they are going to be public hearings.
“It is actually necessary … for the technologist to listen to the labor voice, for the ethicist to listen to the privateness voice” about how the expertise may affect totally different individuals and jobs, Makstman stated.
Below the laws, Makstman would have six months to publish an preliminary stock of the AI packages town is utilizing. He would have a 12 months from when the invoice takes impact to write down up the AI affect evaluation for every program. Any new packages must be added to the checklist with an affect evaluation.
Ronen stated she needed to keep away from the damaging penalties that got here from failing to behave rapidly sufficient to legislate issues that emerged from social media and ride-sharing corporations.
“We’re all the time attempting to play catch-up to this expertise, and we now have to get forward of it,” she stated.
Town is already utilizing AI instruments, as Ronen’s laws factors out.
These embrace town’s 311 cellular app that makes use of AI to mechanically recommend a sort of service based mostly on a consumer’s written description or picture of a reported difficulty. Radiologists within the metropolis’s public well being division are additionally utilizing AI-based imaging instruments to substantiate stroke diagnoses, and to help physicians diagnosing points on CT scans.
Makstman’s division additionally makes use of AI as a part of its digital safety instruments to detect and forestall cybersecurity threats.
Ronen stated she has heard constructive suggestions on the proposal from organized labor, together with the SEIU 1021 union, which represents 16,000 metropolis staff from janitorial employees to nurses, since it would assist them know what AI-related clauses to incorporate once they discount for contracts with town.
Union President Theresa Rutherford stated she is worried about AI choosing away at staff’ job duties or getting used to mechanically get rid of sure forms of individuals from hiring swimming pools, for instance.
She stated the laws would permit her union to make sure that AI is just not used ‘to take away staff … from the office, and necessary sources from the neighborhood.”
She stated an accounting of what AI expertise town is utilizing is a part of that. She additionally stated weighing in substantively on the affect assessments can be crucial. “We all know (AI) has helpful worth, however we need to be companions and need to be a part of the decision-making course of,” Rutherford stated.
The board handed laws earlier this 12 months launched by Supervisor Aaron Peskin banning the usage of algorithms by landlords to set lease costs within the metropolis.
San Francisco already has a legislation handed in 2019 that bans the usage of facial recognition expertise — which might use AI — by the police. A latest lawsuit alleged the San Francisco Police Division outsourced the usage of the expertise to different departments to get across the ban.
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