Foley & Lardner LLP partner Natasha Allen commented in the Law360 article, “Looming Virginia AI Bill Likely Just Start Of State Law Flood,” highlighting the growing enthusiasm at the state level to address artificial intelligence.
“States can’t hold out much longer,” said Allen, who is co-chair of Foley’s Artificial Intelligence team within the firm’s Innovative Technology Sector. “The reality is AI isn’t going anywhere, and states are realizing that waiting is not the answer. Developments are happening every day in this space, and states are recognizing that they have to put in some type of guardrails around this technology.”
Comparing the Virginia legislation to the framework established in Colorado, Allen said the Virginia bill creates additional pressure for both creators and end users to eliminate algorithmic discrimination and adds to the ongoing policy debate over how responsibility for an AI system’s output should be divided.
“There’s this push and pull over whether it should be incumbent on developers to train and develop secure AI systems or is it something that should be looked at on the back end, since the output may not be what the developer intended,” Allen explained. “It will be interesting to see the extent to which other legislatures go with this.”
“A veto likely wouldn’t dissuade other states,” she said of the Virginia legislation. “What it could do, however, is cause them to look at what the Virginia legislature did that didn’t resonate and allow those states to pivot if they’re trying to go down the same route.”
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