A year after Utah legislators opted to regulate the use of generative artificial intelligence in customer interactions, the lead lawmaker behind the bill thinks his first attempt went too far.
A bill introduced and approved in the Senate Business and Labor Committee Friday afternoon narrows the scope of the types of businesses required to disclose when their customers are interacting with generative AI — the kind that can talk back to you if you ask it a question or give it a prompt — and not a real human.
The new law, SB226, is specifically concerned with “high-risk” interactions like health care and finance.
The law enacted last year requires any business regulated by the Division of Consumer Protection to disclose when customers were interacting with AI through things like chatbots and scheduling platforms and not a real person. It was “a little broad,” Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Salt Lake, said Friday, and too “onerous” for small businesses that don’t deal with sensitive information like salons and barber shops.
The proposed bill defines “high-risk” AI interactions as those with financial services, legal advice and medical or mental health services. In those cases, “the consumer should know upfront that they’re dealing with AI,” Cullimore said.
It’s one of several bills that grapples with AI regulation this session.
Another, SB271, prohibits using AI to replicate someone’s voice, image or likeness for commercial use. It’s based on Tennessee’s ELVIS Act and aims to protect artists’ traits from being sold without their consent, bill sponsor Sen. Michael McKell told reporters Thursday.
Gov. Spencer Cox has celebrated Utah’s AI Learning Lab and Policy Center, which were introduced in the same bill Cullimore hopes to refine this session. The AI Policy Center lets businesses using AI work directly with the Division of Consumer Protection on regulations that mitigate AI’s potential harms without “stifling” innovation, Cox said at an AI summit in December.
“I really think it’s revolutionizing the regulatory sphere in our country,” Cox said.
SB226 passed unanimously out of committee Friday and heads to the Senate floor for debate. SB271 is currently in review with the Senate Rules Committee.
Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
