The Select Committee on Blockchain, Financial Technology and Digital Innovation Technology saw a back and forth between two senators over the necessity of a draft artificial intelligence bill. The draft bill pulls from similar efforts in other states, which seek to limit or regulate the use of AI, large language models and other similar automated systems from making decisions that could disenfranchise or wrongly deny claims and benefits without human input.
The draft bill would restrict those systems from making consequential decisions on their own and require agencies to keep a record of which employees use these automated systems.
When drafting the bill, the Legislature’s nonpartisan staff noted they looked at some similar bills out of New Jersey, Colorado and Illinois.
The Wyoming version focuses on "consequential decision making,” which is defined as decisions affecting the outcome of “a person's rights, benefits or obligations provided by law.” The bill also gives a formal definition of artificial intelligence systems, referring to “any machine-based system that … infers from the inputs the system receives how to generate outputs … that can influence physical or virtual environments.”
Sen. Tara Nethercott (R-Cheyenne) and Sen. Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie) were the only committee members to speak on the bill, as they disagreed heavily on its necessity.
Rothfuss supported the bill, saying AI systems have already denied benefits in other states. Some recent examples include a lawsuit against UnitedHealth for allegedly using faulty AI to deny elderly patients medically necessary coverage. In Washington state, thousands of Medicare users could soon have claims denied by AI, according to reporting by KUOW.
Saying that AI was still in its “early days,” the senator from Laramie felt it best to get ahead of the trend. While making it clear the bill would not regulate how government agencies implement AI, he argued that mandating a “human as the last step” was a step in the right direction.
“[The bill is] trying to make sure that there's a human in control of key government decisions,” said Rothfuss.
Nethercott made the point that the bill was “in search of a problem.” She argued the use of any technology doesn’t obfuscate wrongdoing and that fault ultimately falls on the government
“Regardless of the process used by any government entity, or other entity, regarding any decision it's made, the company or government entity doesn't get to not have liability due to the process it used to make the decision,” she said. “The Department of Family Services will be granting or denying those benefits whether or not they used AI as that decision making process or not.”
Nethercott said the bill fails to quell fears around technology and that it would be more effective to simply ban government use of AI or create a specific appeals process for wrongdoing caused by the technology.
Rothfuss argued he wanted to stop the issue before any remedy is needed.
“It's not about liability because these are individual benefits. So yes, if we brought a court in, it would get resolved,” said Rothfuss. “But what was being observed in other states … is that you have an automated process. You were eligible yesterday. You're ineligible now. The AI said so, and there was no human that looked at it.”
Rothfuss added that the AI industry says its best practice is to have eyes on final steps that may be consequential or adverse in nature.
Rothfuss also pushed back on the idea that the bill was regulating AI. Instead, he said it would mandate human eyes at certain decision points.
Nethercott disagreed, pointing to the definitions section of the bill.
“We are defining artificial intelligence. That has consequences as applied both to government entities and across the board for artificial intelligence. We have defined artificial intelligence system, that is significant action,” said Nethercott.
While Rothfuss and Nethercott agreed on certain concepts, like AI has "hallucination” issues, the senators did not find much common ground on the bill.
The committee laid the bill back, planning to work on it at a different time. The Select Committee on Blockchain, Financial Technology and Digital Innovation Technology will meet again on Sept. 28 at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.
