Lawmakers are asking the right questions about AI

Jake Goodrick, Gillette News Record

There’s a flawed duality that fixes in many people’s minds when it comes to the rise in artificial intelligence.

Often the rapidly advancing technology is viewed as either apocalyptic or a godsend, delivered to enhance just about every part of our lives where an inefficiency exists. The be-all and end-all, in either direction.

Maybe this fallacy isn’t unique to AI, as it’s accompanied new technology throughout recent decades. New technology often comes with risks. So far, there’s been no apocalypse.

The trouble with these binary scenarios exists within their extremes: If the evolving technology doesn’t bring Earth-shattering change, then it must be good — or at least a net positive. If it does bring such change, it must be bad.

Of course, as with most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

People may view the increased presence of technology in their lives as either good or bad, but the law views these changes with much more nuance.

A nuanced view is the right one when it comes to evolving law. The problem is that the law doesn’t evolve at the speed of technology.

For that reason, you’ll find few complaints here when state lawmakers prioritize the implications of AI and how Wyoming’s laws should account for it.

Wyoming lawmakers talked this week about AI and how to account for its growing presence and diversifying uses which may be — or already are — impacting Wyomingites.

The questions posed are not unique to Wyoming, but that doesn’t mean other states or even federal agencies have found solutions.

Similar questions — some existential — have impacted industries and the markets they operate within, with media as no exception. (The Wall Street Journal’s parent company cut a $250 million deal with OpenAI this week, joining the ranks of other media companies to find AI partners. Other outlets, like the New York Times, have picked up a legal battle instead.)

With far more questions than answers, and the gap between known and unknown growing quickly as the technology advances faster than our ability to adequately grasp its consequences, it’s easy to feel helpless about overcoming that distance.

Growth of the internet and tech companies like Meta (parent of Facebook) and Apple have posed different but similarly difficult legal questions, disrupting past understandings of everything from First Amendment issues to privacy and what it means to consent.

Wyoming lawmakers talked about a bill related to deepfake technology, which uses AI to alter voices and even appearances to misrepresent who’s speaking or seen. Few dispute the problems that deepfakes can present, particularly, using manipulated sounds and images to misinform and mislead.

Few would dispute the usefulness of combating the spread of false information intensified by technology, but imprecise and overly broad legal language could raise thorny free speech questions. Overly restrictive language could prevent reasonable and lawful uses of the technology.

That’s just on the matter of deepfakes. What about the growing possibilities in which machines and the people orchestrating them can tiptoe or cut through the lines of what’s right and wrong in other areas of the law?

Needless to say, these aren’t simple problems to solve.

There’s more to bite off than an interim committee in Wyoming can chew.

The answers may not be there now, but addressing these questions signals to Wyomingites that their state officials are weighing important concerns and, even if slowly, chipping away at them.