Washington lawmakers move forward with guardrails on AI detection, chatbots

Washington state Sen. Lisa Wellman is a self-described science fiction fanatic.

Wellman regularly gives teenagers Isaac Asimov’s 1950 short story collection I, Robot. She recalls the book’s famous “Three Laws of Robotics,” which include the provision that “a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”

It’s a good lesson, Wellman said, one that some in the tech industry would do well to remember.

Wellman, a Democrat from Bellevue, is the sponsor of Senate Bill 5984, which aims to protect young people from the negative mental health effects of artificial intelligence chatbots. It’s one in a slew of AI-related bills introduced by state lawmakers this year.

“I have not seen what I would call responsible oversight in products that are being put out on the market,” said Wellman, who spent decades in the tech industry working for Apple before becoming a lawmaker. “I’m not even sure that the developers that put the products out in the market have a clear understanding of what they’re capable of.”

Washington state doesn’t have any major AI regulation on the books. But lawmakers are increasingly concerned about the technology’s potential harms, and are looking to catch up.

“I think we’re all very conscious of the issue,” Wellman said.

While many of this year’s proposed AI regulations appear dead for the session, several major bills are advancing, and lawmakers say they feel a sense of urgency. In addition to Wellman’s chatbot bill, lawmakers are looking at legislation related to data centers, AI surveillance in schools, AI-generated content detection and laws to give people the right to their own AI-generated likeness.

“This year, in my mind, is kind of the beginning of trying to address this great leap of artificial intelligence,” said Rep. Clyde Shavers, a Democrat from Oak Harbor who sponsored the bill about AI content detection.

The tech…

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