Want an example of how not to write AI legislation? Here’s one introduced to the House. It’s called the AI Disclosure Act of 2023, introduced by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) on June 5, 2023.

“Disclaimer: this output has been generated by artificial intelligence.”

That’s the Act. To be fair, it does say that the Federal Trade Commission has enforcement power over whether or not the above disclaimer is included with any synthetic media.

🛑 But, how can this be it? It leaves many unanswered questions, such as:

❓ What is the manner in which this disclaimer must appear? As a watermark on a photo or during a sound output? Within the metadata (if so, where)? At the end of a text output?

❓ Is this an obligation on the technology developer, service provider, or end user of an AI technology? The statute says “generative artificial intelligence shall include” which leaves a fairly large, and important, gap for applying this obligation.

❓ Who’s responsible for ensuring it is included and remains included as content is distributed?

It can be assumed the intent is to protect consumers since the “Act” places enforcement authority with the FTC. Then, it’s fair to also assume that the FTC could enforce an Act such as a this one against a range of parties involved in generative AI, including the developer, the provider of the service/product incorporating the technology, the distributor of the content, and the end user of the technology if they also fail to keep any such disclosure when disseminating synthetic media.

“Carefully crafting a regulatory framework for managing the existential risks of AI will be one of the central challenges confronting Congress in the years and decades to come. There is danger in both under-regulating and over-regulating. The simplest place to start is disclosure. All generative AI should be required to disclose itself as AI. Disclosure is by no means a magic bullet, but it’s a common-sense starting point to what will surely be a long road toward federal regulation.”

Rep. Torres

I applaud the concept and intentions behind this effort from Rep. Torres. However, I don’t agree that this is actually accomplishing anything productive.

Read the full press release from Rep. Torres.