{"id":11864,"date":"2024-03-05T18:26:45","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T18:26:45","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"new-hampshire-artificial-intelligence-LLM-AI-54227886\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=11864","title":{"rendered":"Granite Geek: NH lawmakers are taking on AI before we understand it, which is a good thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"FILE<\/a>
FILE – Text from the ChatGPT page of the OpenAI website is shown in this photo, in New York, Feb. 2, 2023. Lawmakers in at least seven states are taking big legislative swings to regulate bias in artificial intelligence. As AI has quietly spread through everyday life, filtering job resumes, rental apartment and home loan applications, studies and lawsuits have found they can discriminate based on race, gender or more. (AP Photo\/Richard Drew, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Here\u2019s a statement I used to firmly believe but now realize is often wrong: \u201cGovernment should not pick technology winners and losers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It can be true, of course, but there are times when the representatives of \u201cwe the people\u201d need to take the lead away from representatives of \u201cthey the venture capitalists.\u201d The eruption of artificial intelligence is one of those times and, happily, it seems that a lot of New Hampshire\u2019s lawmakers agree.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegislators are very open to this (AI) being something that needs legislative action. They seem very aware of the potential threats and consequences. You don\u2019t see much of that wholesale resistance \u2013 \u2018We need to let the technology evolve\u2019 \u2013 that you often see,\u201d said Anna Brown, director of research and analysis for Citizens Count.<\/p>\n

Brown and Citizens Count, by the way, are doing a great job keeping track of the myriad bills bouncing around under the gold dome of the State House: check out www.citizenscount.org\/bills<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At least 10 bills were submitted this year dealing with AI and related technologies, which is impressive considering that most of us thought it was science fiction until ChatGPT showed up.<\/p>\n

(A terminology note: \u201cArtificial intelligence\u201d isn\u2019t intelligent in any useful sense of the term. It describes several technologies that are really just super-duper prediction machines. They guess what humans would do in a given situation, like answering a question or drawing a picture, based on what humanity has done in the past. That guess depends on what is in their database, usually consisting of everything their company can steal from the internet. A bad database leads to bad predictions.)<\/p>\n

Brown summarized the bills, which are percolating through the process at the moment, into two main categories.<\/p>\n

One set would expand existing criminal laws, usually involving sex crimes, so they also apply when AI is involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were three bills targeting AI deepfake porn,\u201d Brown said. \u201cAll of those are coming out with favorable committee recommendations. Legislators say: we\u2019re adding this to state laws right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are definitely logistical concerns about how would we even track down violators, but that doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t pass laws,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Another set would require notification when AI is used, particularly in political advertising. This was prodded in part by the much-publicized deepfake call of a pseudo-Biden telling people not to vote in our presidential primary, as well as use of AI in a GOP ad.<\/p>\n

Both of these are excellent goals that any sensible person would applaud. They\u2019re also relatively straightforward, although with a fast-changing technology like AI there\u2019s difficulty in defining what you mean.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a third category of dealing with AI that I would classify as idiotic, epitomized by this bill: \u201cAllow use of self-driving vehicle for self-defense.\u201d It died in the House, and thankfully doesn\u2019t seem indicative of anybody else\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n

I realize that this is a tough area to legislate because nobody really understands the technology yet. Plus it\u2019s so new that the legislature doesn\u2019t have a good system for factoring it into their thinking: \u201cIt\u2019s not like there\u2019s an AI committee reviewing all these bills. They come out of different places \u2013 executive, criminal justice \u2013 and different committees are going to have different recommendations,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why some bills have been sent for interim study. \u201cOften that\u2019s a polite way to kill a bill \u2026 but every now and then it is very legitimate. This is one of those times,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

I had one big question for Brown as she filled me in on details: Why are our lawmakers suddenly open to reining in the excesses of a new technology? She thinks it might be a reflection of one aspect of live free or die that AI really threatens: the desire to be left alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that on a certain level this is an echo of work started by (former state representative) Neil Kurk \u2026 He definitely created this environment in the New Hampshire legislature that we value our citizens\u2019 privacy and are going to be a leader on that issue. When I hear people talking about those bills, it\u2019s a lot about: We don\u2019t want to be endangering people\u2019s privacy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Whatever the cause, it\u2019s nice to see society acting like adults and trying to grapple with a problem before it becomes insurmountable. That doesn\u2019t happen often enough.<\/p>\n

\n

David Brooks can be reached at dbrooks@cmonitor.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a statement I used to firmly believe but now realize is often wrong: \u201cGovernment should not pick technology winners and losers.\u201dIt can be true, of course, but there are times when the representatives of \u201cwe the people\u201d need to take the lead…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[504,8],"tags":[24,14,505,15],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-centerpiece-2-cm","category-news","tag-facebook","tag-granite-geek","tag-paywall","tag-science-technology","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/43076472-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11866,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11864\/revisions\/11866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11864"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=11864"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}