Increased reliance on automated systems in sectors including
lending, employment and housing threatens to exacerbate
discrimination based on race, disabilities and other factors,
the heads of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Justice
Department's civil rights unit, Federal Trade Commission and
others said.
The growing popularity of AI tools, including Microsoft
Corp-backed Open AI's ChatGPT, has spurred U.S. and European
regulators to heighten scrutiny of their use and prompted calls
for new laws to rein in the technology.
"Claims of innovation must not be cover for lawbreaking," Lina
Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, told reporters.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is trying to reach tech
sector whistleblowers to determine where new technologies run
afoul of civil rights laws, said Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau Director Rohit Chopra.
In finance, firms are legally required to explain adverse credit
decisions. If companies do not even understand the reasons for
the decisions their AI is making, they cannot legally use it,
Chopra said.
"What we're talking about here is often the use of expansive
amounts of data and developing correlations and other analyses
to generate content and make decisions," Chopra said. "What
we're saying here is there is a responsibility you have for
those decisions."
(Reporting by Chris Prentice)
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