Build Trust in AI Now or Risk Policy Backlash, Tech Leaders Told

Tech leaders have to boost public trust in the use of artificial intelligence or risk increasing backlash by policymakers, analysts said Tuesday during a panel at the National Conference of State Legislatures summit in Indianapolis.

State lawmakers are increasingly eyeing potential regulations of the technology in the absence of federal action. Some states like Connecticut and Texas have established panels to research the topic. North Dakota banned legal personhood for AI. An effort to approve comprehensive regulations stalled in California earlier this year.

“That ability to earn that trust is going to really, I think, enable an ability for this technology to be deployed and used,” said Nicole Foster of Amazon Web Services during a discussion on AI and its policy implications. “I think regulation is going to be an important part of that, but I think we need to make sure that we’re targeting it in a way that we don’t lose the good.”

The panel discussion, which was sponsored by Amazon.com Inc., highlighted the positives of AI and how securing the confidence of consumers will be key to striking a balance between the risks and rewards of the emerging technology.

AI has provoked fears about robots replacing humans in the workplace, but Foster emphasized its current uses are mostly mundane. Zoom blurs out backgrounds. Netflix recommends videos. ChatGPT cranks out everyday correspondence for people on the go.

Connecticut state Sen. James Maroney (D), who moderated the panel, noted that AI has been around for decades in one form or another before the recent advancements. “AI started actually was originally discussed in 1955 at Dartmouth College,” he said.

Transparency Key in Debate

Widespread public attention to the tech platform is relatively new, following the release of generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard as well as the proliferation of deep fake images affecting politics, pornography, and even the stock market.

“I think where a lot of this consternation and fear and maybe even some frustration about whether or not we trust AI is coming from is the reality that this space is moving so fast and it is creating a lot of these questions around what is real and what is not,” said Chloe Autio of the Cantellus Group, an advisory firm on tech issues.

Transparency is a key building block for public confidence in wonky tech such as machine learning, large language models, and facial recognition software, Foster said. Disclosing that humans are interacting with AI is a good place to start, but consumers might also need to know whether any automated decision can be appealed to a fellow human, she added.

“There’s lots of privacy disclosures and people just click boxes, but I think it’s really important that as leaders you’ve demonstrated some due diligence,” Foster said. “How should this technology be deployed? How was it designed to be deployed?”

Integrating watermarks into images and videos generated by AI could also keep deep fake videos and images in check, Maroney said.

One audience member spoke of how a single mistake challenged his own confidence in AI as legislatures nationwide continue to debate how best to regulate the technology.

“I asked Bart a couple of months ago: ‘Who was the first female governor of Arkansas?’ And the answer I got was: ‘It was Bill Clinton’s wife, Hillary,’” Arkansas state Rep. Stephen Meeks (R) told the panelists. “Obviously, she was not the governor.”