As artificial intelligence plays a bigger and bigger part in our daily lives – it’s not just the tech companies – many are concerned about how state agencies will be able to use some of the information they collect on us in conjunction with the development of these AI advancements.
Connecticut lawmakers are working on a framework right now.
So where does all of this stand? NBC Connecticut’s Mike Hydeck spoke with Mark Raymond, the chief information officer of the state Department of Administrative Services.
Mike Hydeck: So everybody thinks AI, oh, it’s big. And it’s scary. Should we be scared of it?
Mark Raymond: I think there are things to be scared about. But there’s also great promise through AI. Just like operating a car, right? There’s things to be scared about there. We need to be do a better job of understanding it and preparing ourselves for how to use it safely. I don’t think that there’s a lot of scary monsters behind AI. It’s just something new for us to learn. And it’s changing very rapidly. So we have to pay attention.
Mike Hydeck: So a lot of the things we see in the news and things where it’s covered is like ChatGPT. And people will feed information in it, and they can paint the painting in a certain style and a certain year, like that. How does that apply to the state government being able to use that kind of technology? I’m not saying it’s gonna do the same thing. But I mean, it’s pretty impressive.
Mark Raymond: Yeah, those are called generative AI, which means it helps to create something new from descriptions that you have. Some of the simple ways that we would use something like that would be, ‘hey, give me these two versions of legislation and simply compare, give me a summary of what the differences. Or federal regulations that come our way, what’s changed.’ It helps to understand language and translate it to ways that make it easier to understand. Those are simple uses. They are a lot more complex pieces that we would not want to apply that kind of technology to.
Mike Hydeck: Well, it seems this expediency of that technology could also mine your personal data, could mine account numbers, it could mine social security numbers. How do we protect the regular voter, human being here in Connecticut, from the state government maybe reaching too far or anybody else reaching too far for that matter?
Mark Raymond: Well, I think the legislation that’s in place is a great start, right, which says, let’s look at all of the areas in which we would like to use it today. And make sure that we understand what data that we might be exposing to it or what data we shouldn’t be, and then how to test the kinds of things that it’s providing to us to make sure that there’s no bias in it, that we’re fair and transparent in our use.
Mike Hydeck: So what kind of safeguards can be built into that? I mean, in addition to how it legally transpires, you have to have somebody who knows how to read and write code. Right? On the state level.
Mark Raymond: We have people who do that. I think the power of the technology is it makes it really easy for anyone to use. That’s the danger, right? That anyone can use it.
Mike Hydeck: Right, like a bad actor, or a crook or a thief or whatever.
Mark Raymond: So for us, it’s educating our employees on how to use it safely, and putting guardrails in place that prevent them from sharing our data. Like none of these systems are just connected to our data or running amok inside state systems, you have to give it information. And so that’s where part of the protection lies is we just don’t give it the information that we need to protect.
Mike Hydeck: So let’s let’s do a hypothetical case in point: a state employee at the Department of Motor Vehicles has a lot of your sensitive information. They feed it to, there has to be a safeguard so they can’t feed it or safeguard where you know, your insurance company, your social security, that kind of thing.
Mark Raymond: Yes, and we have sort of blocking technologies that prevent people from from doing some of those kinds of things. There’s a set of technologies called data loss prevention that says, if you are using data that looks to be sensitive that it can’t go someplace else. And you can also put models out there, use AI that are bespoke, which means they’re ours only. They’re not open models. So ChatGPT is an open model, you can send things there. And it’s available for everyone. There are also some closed models that you can put it in, and no one else has access to it, right. That’s how companies and governments will be using AI, get the training and the response from other places, but use the data only for yourself and your residents.
Mike Hydeck: Now this is regarding, you know, the voters of Connecticut and the state of Connecticut. What happens if a company comes in, whether it’s a small company or a big company, and they use AI just in their data collection, or they use it to make their processes go more quickly. But if you’re employed by them, they could have your social, they’d have to have your social security number and all those other things. Can the state of Connecticut do anything to protect a worker against his or her own company?
Mark Raymond: I think you’ll see that coming in the next session. So the legislation that came through this time was really around state government. And I think it was a bit of a testing ground to say, you know, how can we keep our state agencies and data more safe. But I think the idea is, we need to set regulatory guidance for all of our companies. Washington, the White House, has been very upfront on putting that information out. And we’re working with them quite closely on how does this apply to everyone, not just governments. We have to use the technology safely. And there’s some great guidance coming out, and some good work with the private sector on let’s put this through together. Instead of, you know, lots of regulations are slowly developing. This technology is moving so quickly we have to almost work together in real time to say, here’s how to regulate it and work safely.
Mike Hydeck: It’s so fast you almost have to legislate into the future, which is nearly impossible.
Mark Raymond: Or be really quick on your toes.