AUSTIN, Texas — Several Texans, including a popular country music artist, urged state lawmakers to put more guardrails on artificial intelligence during a hearing Tuesday at the State Capitol.
The growth of AI is one of many topics lawmakers will tackle in the upcoming legislative session.
“It’s very hard to put guardrails around all of the bad things it might generate,” said Dr. Matthew Lease, a professor at the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin.
Lease and Dr. Drew Hamilton, director of Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center, shared with state senators the state of artificial intelligence and data collection.
“I’ve gotten to a point where if it’s not government, I give them a phony birthdate,” Hamilton said.
One concern raised was AI’s potential impact on November and future elections, and how it can be eliminated or minimized.
“One thing we can do is sort of put restrictions that when people are using generative AI or AI technologies in general to produce advertising ... That there’s appropriate disclosure in terms of what sorts of content there is real and not,” Lease said.
The panel also heard ideas from other governments, including lawmakers in New York and Colorado, to limit bias in AI making decisions on housing, health care and employment.
“It’s critical to get this right,” said Meghan Pensyl, director of Policy at BSA | The Software Alliance.
Texas country singer-songwriter Josh Abbott also testified. Abbott is concerned generative AI could copy those things from artists and hurt them.
“My voice and my image and my name, they set me apart,” Abbott said. “It’s literally my brand. They can create a new record of me performing a song that I might not ever sing, and they profit from it. They might also create a video of me saying something that I would never say and ruin my reputation."
Abbott told lawmakers he hopes to see outdated right-of-publicly legislation updated.
Other speakers shared how AI is helping.
Tina McLeod, the chief information officer at the Texas Attorney General’s Office, testified that AI has helped speed up investigations and reduce the mental burden on investigators.
“The results [of our survey] showed that everybody using this Chat GPT-like interface saves about an hour a week, and a lot of people said they even saved more,” McLeod said. “Knowing that we have 3,000 workers in child support, we know that we’re going to be able to save a lot of time and help a lot more people.”
State lawmakers can start filing bills in November. The 89th legislative session starts in January.