Illinois lawmakers take a stab at regulating AI

CHICAGO (WGEM) - Artificial intelligence becomes more common in our lives every day, which has caught the attention of Illinois lawmakers.

Illinois legislators were briefed Thursday during a hearing on the technology, its potential risks and how to potentially regulate it.

Whether it’s ChatGPT or watching deepfake videos, experts testified AI dramatically changes how people see things.

That’s why lawmakers are looking for an answer to the million-dollar question: how do they regulate it?

“It is our responsibility to establish guardrails and other mechanisms to protect individuals and society at large from emerging threats related to AI while at the same time nurturing the positive impacts of this technology,” said the committee’s Chair, Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, D-Glenview.

Ben Zhao is a computer science professor at the University of Chicago and an expert in AI technology.

He said there are two types of AI. Discriminatory AI has been around for a long time. It can be asset.

“These AI systems are the things that allow us to do things like have interesting drug discovery programs or identify cancer cells or look for signals in deep space,” Zhao said.

He said most people are familiar with the other type of AI, generative. Examples include deepfake videos and ChatGPT. Generative AI models trade on people’s work product without consent, credit or compensation.

“These models output content that directly competes with and takes jobs away from human creatives,” Zhao said.

He said people lose control of their voices, their faces and their very identities.

Gong-Gershowitz said losing that control is a major reason why she and her colleagues want to act.

“The right to control our image is something that is far more important and essential to what it means to be human as this technology rapidly evolves,” she said.

She added lawmakers previously failed to act on regulating social media companies. She does not want to repeat those mistakes.

Illinois lawmakers aren’t the only ones taking notice. President Joe Biden issued an executive order Monday establishing new standards for AI safety and security. He also called on Congress to pass legislation protecting Americans’ data privacy.

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