NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council is considering ways to control the use of so-called artificial intelligence for public services. 

 

The draft ordinance is proposed by Council President Ashley Shade, who said she has been working for more than a year on language for a new chapter in the city's code — "Safeguards for Artificial Intelligence, Fairness & Equity."

 

"The language that I proposed was from a mixture of different ordinances that other communities have adopted, but there are no ordinances like this in the commonwealth, or even in this country, that I could find," she said at Tuesday's General Government Committee meeting. "I built this so it could be built upon. The whole point of the language in here is so that it's a starting point, and that it gets continually built up. ... 

 

"The number one thing that this ordinance does, and the most important thing to me about this ordinance, is that we are protecting the civil rights of the people in our community."

 

Shade, a member of the committee, told the dozen attendees at the meeting that AI was happening; but the city could regulate it and require it be used in a responsible way. 

 

The AI Safety ordinance basically defines two types of AI: high risk and low risk. Low-risk are applications and software that hold no decision-making capabilities such as for transcription, spell checking, etc. So internal administrative, clerical, or productivity tools that "do not materially affect rights, benefits, or enforcement outcomes shall not be considered high-risk."

 

High-risk is any application being used for public services that could 1) affect someone's legal rights, benefits or access to services; 2) employment decisions such as hiring, evaluation, discipline or termination; 3) code and law enforcement; 4) surveillance, monitoring and tracking; and 5) that present a risk of discrimination or "disparate impact under applicable law."

 

Shade said "anything that involves the Police Department or public safety is automatically considered high risk, anything that involves your access to public services is high risk, meaning any AI in schools, because schools and public service is a high risk. ... even in the library, the library is using an AI for their card catalog, it's considered high risk because it's a public service and the public has access."

 

The ordinance calls for the appointment of an AI compliance officer and a public online registry of AI tools being used by the city, and recommends the creation of an advisory committee. Shade said her goal was to create a framework for the administration to develop policies around rather than set out specific rules and enforcement. 

 

"There's a lot of work to change ordinances, so you don't want regular, basic internal policy in an ordinance, because it makes it very difficult to change," she said. "AI is so rapidly changing we need the policy to be able to rapidly evolve and change internally with it, so that's kind of the logic behind that."

 

The language has been reviewed with the city's information technology director, who would likely be the AI officer, and vetted by the city solicitor, who advised some changes that Shade went through with the committee. 

 

She cautioned that this is still a draft that will need some more work and that other committees may weigh in. For instance, she noted the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Commission anticipates defining a "civil rights impact review" for AI applications and developing criteria. 

 

Attendee Virginia Riehl said it was important that the AI officer not only understand how an application works but the broader impacts, the "consumer level," of its use. 

 

"This compliance officer is front and center about how this is going to be done and whether it actually effectuates in a way that protects people, and, and if there isn't the right skills, qualifications, and expertise in that, this puts everything at risk that you're trying to accomplish," she said. 

 

She suggested putting those qualifications into the ordinance and others in the audience asked who would hire the officer, how could citizens have a voice in that hiring and would the council have to give its approval. 

 

Committee Chair Keith Bona said the mayor is the hiring authority in the city and it falls upon her to develop a job description, with the aid of department heads or consultants, and select the right person.

 

"To do it with this one would be no different than doing it with any of them, saying, well, we want the most qualified person for your school superintendent," he said. "We could put those all in ordinances, but that's part of what the administration does, is they go and they look and they find the most qualified people."

 

He pointed out that this probably would not be a new hire but would be likely be a title added to an existing position, like the IT director. 

 

Shade reiterated that the administration has the authority for hiring and creating policies and ordinances provide the legal foundation that to happen. 

 

"If we don't like the job the administration is doing, you vote for a new administration, and then you get new people in those jobs, so there are mechanisms to do that," she said. "Anything related to job descriptions to me is an internal thing, not an ordinance thing. Creating a position within city government is different, but actually assigning job duties and responsibilities, that is completely internal, and that is not something we should ever do in a city ordinance."

 

Riehl said she wasn't asking for a job description but rather that the ordinance should contain the kind of expertise that should be considered.

 

Committee Bryan Sapienza said technology is changing, and so could qualifications. Putting something like that in ordinance "would make the process very lethargic," if it had to be continually updated. Bona later agreed, saying the IT department would be the one most updated on changes in AI and computer systems.

 

"This ordinance is something that the AI director not only approved of but was very excited about implementing because of his awareness of the risk that AI poses," said Shade, pointing to IT Director Mark Pierson's work making the city's network as secure as possible. 

 

"This is a beginning, this is a start, and the goal of the ordinance could be to put rules in place, but it's again always up to the administration to follow through and to do the things that are required, so keep that in mind. We can make the rules and we can put them into law, but it's the administration's job to enforce."

 

She thanked the people who attended and participated in the discussions during the meeting, which also looked at the short-term rental ordinance. 

 

"I love it, because these are the meetings where we can actually have the back and forth dialog and discuss the things that we need to change or add or didn't think of," she said.