While San Jose gets comfortable with artificial intelligence, the city is preparing safety nets for its own associations.
The city published a series of Employee Guidelines on AI. Last July. Now, it’s almost finished with an AI policy with requirements for companies working with San Jose. This policy was created in conjunction with the Government AI Coalition – a collective of public agencies across the country working together to develop policies to help use AI responsibly.
The coalition was led by San José and launched in November with nine other governments. It has grown to more than 600 members representing 250 public agencies, including Sunnyvale, Sacramento and San Francisco.
San Jose CIO Khaled Tawfik said the coalition has worked to clarify the information government bodies need from AI companies, such as how long a program stores private data or whether the program has any bias. potential.
The coalition has published templates for AI-related regulations, including a form for AI companies that details what information they must provide when working with government agencies.
Tawfik said it is important to establish simplified safety rules from the beginning with burgeoning technology. He pointed to the advent of smartphones and social media, and how regulators continually try to catch up with the speed of innovation and bad actors online.
“None of the parents gave their kids a bike and sent them to the park and told them to go figure it out, but we felt like it was safe to give our kids a smartphone,” Tawfik told San José Spotlight. “We are trying to learn from our mistakes of the last 25 years.”
The coalition allows agencies to communicate about the issues they face, in hopes of identifying potential risks sooner, Tawfik said.
Another advantage is the consolidation of government voices, as legislatures across the country take action to regulate AI. At the Colorado Department of Revenue, Data Governance and Artificial Intelligence Chief Anthony Fisher has been presenting to colleagues at other agencies the potential of AI at work. He co-chairs the coalition’s Foreign Affairs Committee, where he has helped draft AI policies aligned with the hundreds of other member agencies.
“I want to make sure I give my citizens and my stakeholders the best possible outcome and if AI is the type of tool to help with that, then I want to be able to do that and make sure everything is taken care of. correctly,” Fisher told San José Spotlight.
California lawmakers are considering a handful of AI bills this year, including one that regulates the use of deepfake technology in pornography and another that could require artificial intelligence companies to release data sets used to create certain systems. . At the federal level, Congressman Ro Khanna introduced the first bill drafted with ChatGPT last year and hosted an AI roundtable in March, where participants discussed the issue of guardrails.
“There needs to be a long-term strategy in Congress and at the local level to not only create safety barriers, but also to ensure that workers benefit from the advancement of this technology,” Khanna told San José Spotlight.
San Jose has been trying to bring more AI industry to the city and strategize to attract companies. Previously, Mayor Matt Mahan told San José Spotlight that the city is a prime location for AI companies due to its proximity to world-renowned hardware, software and semiconductor companies. Tawfik also said the city has nearly 10,000 AI-related patents.
“I think AI will be integrated into everything we do in the future,” Tawfik said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how this can be implemented safely.”
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @SakuCannestra on X, formerly known as Twitter.
