Idaho lawmakers look to recommend AI policies

BOISE — Idaho lawmakers are grappling with ways the state could benefit from generative artificial intelligence, how to put safeguards on it, and how or whether to try to regulate the use of it in the private sector.

The interim legislative AI work group met for the second time Tuesday to hear from industry and government resources as the members prepare to potentially bring policy recommendations in January.

“We’re using it in state government in one form or another today, and … this is with the absence of guidance, the absence of a framework, the absence of guardrails,” Idaho Chief Information Officer and Administrator Alberto Gonzalez told the committee Tuesday.

The state IT office conducted an AI survey this year, and of the nearly 3,000 employees from 45 agencies who responded, 23% said their agency was currently using a form of generative AI and another 23% were exploring options to do so.

Most respondents said they used AI for content creation and process automation, Gonzalez said. The biggest concern among respondents was data privacy as well as ethical and regulatory and compliance issues.

Gonzalez told lawmakers he sees a lot of potential to improve efficiency with AI tools, but there’s a need for rules and guidelines around its use.

There’s also concerns about it replacing jobs, he said.

Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, said his No. 1 priority is putting regulations on the technology’s use, but second is improving training so state employees can up-skill instead of being replaced.

States across the nation are tackling the rising technology, according to staff from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“At NCSL, we’ve tracked AI-specific legislation over the past six years, and as you can imagine, the number of bills introduced in this time has increased substantially,” said Chelsea Canada, NCSL program principal for financial services, technology and communications. “With no major federal legislative enactments focusing on regulating AI use and/or protecting people from potential harms of AI and other automated systems, states are moving ahead to address potential harms from these technologies.”

Idaho has enacted laws requiring disclosure in deceptive AI-generated electioneering content and prohibiting AI-created child pornography.

Nationwide, there were 450 bills and resolutions related to AI introduced this year, Canada said. Most of the proposed legislation centered on government use, closely followed by private-sector use.

Most of the legislation that has been enacted falls within three categories: studying and overseeing the technology, government use, and targeted legislation toward specific uses, such as in health care, Canada said.

Google’s Director of Customer Engineering for the Public Sector Chris Hein told lawmakers about AI tools aimed at public sector use and what kinds of safeguards the company puts in place.

Lawmakers on Tuesday also heard about ethical considerations from Jim Berg, a Meridian resident who retired in 2020 after a career as a sales executive for tech companies such as Micron and NVIDIA, according to his LinkedIn page.

Berg predicted a continued skyrocketed trajectory of AI technology’s improvement and its potential disruption to society. Berg and Hein both spoke to newer technology called “agent AI,” which does not generate content but can take actions and “make decisions,” within the parameters of its designated job.

“It has the ability to create and execute very complex tasks,” Berg said.

He said without rules surrounding ethics in the field, the tool’s ethical framework will depend on the developer creating it.

His recommendation was to create an “ethics dashboard,” in which rules can be established and then an AI tool being used could be asked how it is applying the rules. He advocated for a Biblical perspective when creating the framework.

“When you understand what you want your rules to be, my prayer is that it would be the Bible, but once you know what that looks like, you actually have to measure it and ask AI questions to see how it’s being used in the environment that it’s in,” Berg told lawmakers.

Committee co-Chairperson Jeff Ehlers, R-Meridian, told members to bring policy ideas to the next meeting, which will likely take place in January. The 2025 legislative session begins Jan. 6.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.