Washington – The District of Columbia Council Committee on Government Operations and Facilities will hear from experts Thursday about the potential impacts of proposed legislation, B24-0558, aimed at regulating automated decision making. Khara Boender, State Policy Director for the Computer & Communications Industry offered written comments and expressed to the Committee that CCIA shares their view that more must be done to understand the impacts of AI-informed decision making, and that experts need to be at the table when crafting regulations and best practices surrounding such technologies.
Boender said that while governments may have an interest in gathering information on AI decision making, overly prescriptive audit and data collection requirements risk exposing sensitive business trade secrets and may pose a threat to user privacy online.
The following can be attributed to Boender:
“We would encourage government officials to weigh the benefits and risks of algorithmically-informed decision-making systems. Such technologies are often misunderstood, and given their complexity, lawmakers should pause and not only look to forthcoming best practices from national technical experts, but also ensure stakeholders and practitioners are engaged in these conversations. It is worth noting that lengthy data storage requirements and private rights of action may put user data at risk and set up a system that encourages more lawsuits than innovation at a time when the US is competing with other countries to develop and capitalize on AI technological benefits.”