Illinois legislators address impacts of artificial intelligence on
society
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[November 03, 2023]
By Kevin Bessler | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – The state of Illinois is entering into the world
of artificial intelligence with possible regulations of the technology.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Thursday to address
emerging issues in the AI industry.
State Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, D-Glenview, said lawmakers should
not take the same approach with AI as they did with social media.
“Lawmakers decided to take a largely hands-off approach to regulation,”
Gong-Gershowitz said. “We’ve seen the tangled web of societal ills that
approach [that] was caused due to a lack of regulatory action.”
Gong-Gershowitz sponsored a measure to crack down on the abusive and
harmful use of digital forgeries, also known as deepfakes. The law would
create a civil cause of action against any person who knowingly
distributes, creates or solicits a digital forgery of another individual
without their consent and for the purposes of harassing, extorting,
threatening or causing harm to the falsely depicted individual.
The Biden administration this week announced executive actions to try to
establish oversight of the AI sector, including setting new standards
for safety tests for AI products.
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Illinois state Rep. Dan Ugaste, R-Geneva
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State Rep. Dan Ugaste, R-Geneva, said AI should be embraced, but
cautioned that some people are going to lose their jobs.
“While I would love to guarantee everyone’s job going forward, it is
just not how the world has ever worked,” Ugaste said. “Every time we
have innovation, as simple as innovation on trains, unfortunately
someone has lost a job.”
Shawn Davis, director of technical investigations with the law firm
Edelson PC, testified that there are many issues with AI that need to be
monitored, including involving next year’s elections.
“There are concerns about AI-based tools being used to clone voices and
images to impersonate candidates in the 2024 elections, which could
mislead voters and spread disinformation,” Davis said.
Earlier this year, the Generative AI and Natural Language Processing
Task Force was formed. Supporters said the task force is needed to track
and study AI advancements and allow Illinois to stay informed. The task
force is mostly vacant with members still to be appointed by the
governor. |