Hunton Andrews Kurth writes:
As reported on Hunton’s Employment & Labor Perspectives blog, on October 30, 2023, President Biden issued a wide-ranging Executive Order to address the development of artificial intelligence (“AI”) in the United States. Entitled the Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (the “Executive Order”), the Executive Order seeks to address both the “myriad benefits” as well as what it calls the “substantial risks” that AI poses to the country. It caps off a busy year for the Executive Branch in the AI space. In February 2023, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published its Strategic Enforcement Plan, which highlighted AI as a chief concern, and in April 2023, the White House released an AI Bill of Rights. The Executive Order, described as a “Federal Government-wide” effort, charges a number of federal agencies, notably including the Department of Labor (“DOL”), with addressing the impacts of employers’ use of AI on job security and workers’ rights.
Beginning with a section dedicated to “Supporting Workers,” the Executive Order concentrates on mitigating a much-feared outcome of the AI boom: the displacement of human workers. To address this potential risk, the Executive Order directs the Secretary of Labor to evaluate the ability of federal agencies to support workers displaced by the adoption of AI and “other technological advances.” The Executive Order suggests combining worker retraining programs through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act with existing unemployment insurance administered by the DOL. What “other technological advances” means, beyond AI, remains to be seen, but certainly broadens the potential remit of the agency to other algorithmic decision-making tools employers use.
Read more at Privacy & Information Security Law Blog.