Illinois Human Rights Act Expanded to Include AI Regulation
Recently, Illinois Governor Pritzker signed H.B. 3773 into law, marking a significant expansion of the Illinois Human Rights Act to include specific regulations on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in employment decisions. This move reflects the state’s ongoing commitment to civil rights protection, now extending into the realm of advanced technology.
What Does H.B. 3773 Mean for Your Business?
Is AI Washing Dirty?
Many people have become familiar with the term “greenwashing,” referring to attempts by a company to cast its products as more environmentally friendly than they are through public relations and marketing “spin” efforts.
Now comes the concept of “AI-washing,” in which companies exaggerate the degree to which or ways in which their products and services are powered by artificial intelligence, in order to gain a real or perceived competitive advantage. In addition to potentially misleading consumers and harming investors, this can break U.S. securities law, according to Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
How Can Generative AI Assist Your Business?
What is generative artificial intelligence, embedded in applications such as ChatGPT? How could it help your business? What pitfalls should you avoid. What policies should you craft around it?
This is no longer science fiction. AI has become a reality and every business will be impacted by its use and application and your business must get on board with dealing with it and using it.
You Can, But Should You?
To begin with, employers thinking about using AI such as ChatGPT during hiring and selection need to familiarize themselves with the technology at a conceptual level, and then look closely at—and understand well enough so they can explain to others—how AI integrates with their recruiting tools and practices.
A key piece of state legislation in Illinois pertaining to the use of AI is the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act (820 ILCS 42/1), which lays down various stipulations for the recording of video interviews and subsequent use of AI while evaluating said recordings.
If the robots start taking over, you can’t necessarily expect the government to protect you.
That isn’t to say the public sector isn’t paying attention. President Biden and Vice President Harris met recently with CEO’s of Microsoft, Alphabet Google’s and other leading artificial intelligence companies and pushed the message that AI products—particularly the generative AI found in trending apps like ChatGPT—must have safety protocols built in place before they’re released.
Among the current and potential risks that Biden, who is himself a ChatGPT user, warned about include those to individuals, society at large, and the country’s national security—ranging from violations of privacy, to skewed decisions about employment, to misinformation campaigns, to outright scams.
Can I-Robot Hold a Patent?
An obscure but telling sign of when the robots will have taken over will be in evidence when they’re allowed to be named as inventors on patent applications. But that day—when “I, Robot”-like artificial intelligence is thusly recognized as rivaling that of humans—hasn’t come about yet, at least not here in these United States. So Sonny – the good robot in the movie I, Robot” – cannot hold a patent, at least not yet!
That came as a disappointment to Stephen Thaler, creator of the DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) AI system, who had filed two patent applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office listing only DABUS as the inventor.
Chicago Business Attorney Blog