By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — A plan by a former Dartmouth computer science professor to regulate state agencies’ use of artificial intelligence met opposition from the head of the state information technology department saying more flexibility is needed.

House Bill 1688 defines AI, generative AI and deepfake and has a list of four prohibitions for using AI by state workers.

The prime sponsor of the bill, Rep. Thomas Cormen, D-Lebanon, said his bill restricts state agencies and no one else. “I want to protect everyone’s rights,” he told the House Executive Department and Administration Committee Wednesday.

Among the restrictions are:

Behavioral manipulation;

Classifying people based on socio-economic status, or personal characteristics resulting in unlawful discrimination, or causing a disparate impact on individuals or group based on any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, including age, genetic information, color, ethnicity, race, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, familial status, pregnancy, veteran status, disability, or lawful source of income;

Real-time and remote biometric identification systems used for surveillance in public spaces, such as facial recognition:

And deepfakes when used for any deceptive or malicious purposes.

State higher education systems would be exempt from the prohibitions.

Cormen said his bill deals only with the behavior of systems and not their implementation, which will change over time.

The bill also allows certain uses with restrictions that would require human intervention or decision making like when to tell a robot to shoot in a hostage situation, or an individual’s rights or freedom, law enforcement or interpreting the laws of the state including sentences.

Any material generated by AI that is not reviewed by a person would need to display that it is AI generated, as it would when a person is interacting with an AI system.

Several committee members wondered if lawmakers should take a holistic approach to AI and consolidate the four or five bills dealing with AI this session or possibly establish a commission to make recommendations for what the state should do.

“We’re dipping our toe into the Atlantic Ocean rather than a tub,” said committee member Rep. Peter Schmidt, D-Dover. 

“This really is getting into it.”
Cormen said his bill does not set up a study committee or commission, and he talked with a committee chair who suggested amending a bill to form a committee and he approached the House Speaker about establishing a special committee, but he wasn’t interested.

Denis Goulet, Department of Information Technology Commissioner, said he opposes the bill not so much from what is in it, but because the industry is changing so rapidly he needs to be able to adapt very quickly and having the legislature have to act on new legislation would be too cumbersome.

“I share Rep. Cormen’s passion for doing AI correctly,” Goulet said, “that is one of reasons why New Hampshire was one of the first states to have a code of ethics.”
He said that code is based on several other codes including the European Union’s code. The code as well as other information about AI is on the front page of the department’s web page.

Goulet said vendors are adding AI to many platforms being used in state government, and the department needs the ability to move quickly if something needs to be changed to correct a flaw.

He said the bill misses one very important thing and that is protecting the state’s data, noting with AI you cannot do anything without data.

“Protecting the state’s data is one of the things we should be doing,” Goulet said. “We tell vendors they cannot use our data for purposes outside New Hampshire.”
He said he does not think enough is known about AI to put regulations in statutes yet.

Goulet said he is mostly in agreement with what Cormen wants to accomplish, the problem is only a timing issue.

The chair of the committee, Rep. Carol McGuire, R-Epsom, said a sub-committee would review and work on the bill before the committee decides what recommendation to make.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com. Garry has been a reporter in New Hampshire for 40 years.