Intuit CPO Empathizes with Policymakers Regulating AI
AI’s high-speed evolution makes it a tough technology to regulate, said panelists at a partly virtual University of Illinois privacy conference Thursday.
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Intuit Chief Privacy Officer Elise Houlik has “a deep level of empathy for the regulators [and] policymakers who are trying to get on top of this technology, trying to make their way through what is typically a very long and time-consuming legislative process and then put out into the world a law that applies to technology that probably isn't the same technology that they were looking at when they drafted the law.”
Natasha Allen, an AI lawyer at Foley, agreed that regulating AI might be an unwinnable race. "You're trying to put in a process that's slow on something that is not going to be moving slowly,” she said. "It is trying to legislate a moving target, which is almost impossible."
Houlik hopes for a federal standard governing AI. However, "I don't think a law's coming to save the day." That said, the Intuit CPO also noted that some are trying to regulate AI under privacy laws, including through rules around automated decision-making. The California Privacy Protection Agency has a pending -- and controversial -- rulemaking on that subject (see 2505020034).
Concerning a related issue, Houlik observed that AI could benefit data protection. “It's an exciting time to be a part of the profession, because we are also using the technology that we are working to govern and … maintain accountability for,” said the Intuit CPO, who highlighted privacy-enhancing technologies as particularly intriguing. “I do think as this technology becomes much more of the norm, that we will be in a place where we have a better understanding of how it interacts with sensitive data” and “about controls to put around that sensitive data."