On November 27, 2023, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) released a draft text of regulations related to businesses' use of “automated decision making technology.” The draft regulations, if adopted, would establish a framework for how businesses can implement automated decision making technology that uses personal information to make a decision or acts as a replacement for human decision making. A key issue that the CPPA draft regulations address is when a consumer can and cannot opt-out of a business’ use of this technology.

Last week, important odd-year elections were held in a handful of states, which means we’re officially in the 2024 presidential election cycle. As lawmakers contemplate their reelection campaigns, a direct concern of theirs, a concern shared by industry leaders, is AI’s use to influence 2024 election results. AI, in the form of “deepfake” images, audio, and video could be used to manipulate images and recordings to change a candidate’s speech into something they didn’t say, alter a candidate's movement in an embarrassing manner, or doctor images to perpetuate false narratives.

In total, state lawmakers have introduced over 160 bills related to AI this year. Notably, the vast majority of this legislation failed to move past the committee stage of the legislative process. While a few of these bills focused on generative AI models, many of these were intended to bring more attention to the emerging issue. Most of the bills considered this year can be organized into six categories: Facial Recognition Technology, Protections Against Biases, Deepfakes, Social Media Regulation, AI Use in Government, and Study Groups.

We’ve established that artificial intelligence is the issue du jour in state capitols today and that state lawmakers are solidly in the education stage of the policymaking process around AI regulation. But it’s helpful to take a step back and ask what are we even talking about? What is “artificial intelligence”? Policymakers and industry insiders have yet to settle on a universal definition, and lawmakers need a more precise and narrow definition of AI in order to regulate the technology in legislation. So far, states have proposed various definitions.

From a public policy standpoint, we’re solidly in the education phase of AI regulation. We’re all scrambling to get up to speed on this emerging technology. For policymakers, this means study committees, task forces, and working groups dedicated to hearing from experts and stakeholders with the goal of developing recommendations on how best to regulate AI at this stage in the technology’s development. And that’s largely what we’ve seen this year as lawmakers gear up for a busy 2024 legislative session. Eight states have created a dedicated group tasked with studying AI, while another 11 states have asked a standing committee or state agency to take the lead in studying this emerging technology.