News
Wednesday, 12 February 2025

Legislature Tries to Curb Abuses of AI

Worries about the malicious use of AI in government work have sparked the drafting of two bills to limit its use and promote transparency, but both quickly drew criticism for their broadness. Before the House Judiciary Committee, House Bill 178 prohibits the use of AI in surveillance and facial recognition, unless used to identify a missing person, a suspect in a serious crime or to identify corpses. The bill also requires any use of AI in government be disclosed.

Montana Department of Justice Dir. of External Affairs Alex Sterhan told the committee his agency is in “soft” opposition to the bill because it would be too limiting for law enforcement.  He told the committee, “ And so it’s a little bit hard to kind of put parameters on that right now and exactly what those tools can be used for. But I think in terms of the makeup of our state and the rurality of it – is it can really help us in scalability and getting that out there.”

Across the Capitol, the Senate State Administration Committee looked at Senate Bill 25, requiring disclosure of “deepfakes” used in state elections. “Deepfakes” are “AI-generated content or synthetic media that depicts a candidate or political party with the intent to injure the reputation of the candidate or party or otherwise deceive a voter.”

The bill, carried by Sen. Janet Ellis, a Democrat from Helena, said she has not heard of any use of deepfakes in Montana elections — this bill is simply preventative.  She told the committee, “ One of my concerns sitting in on [The State Administration and Veterans’ Affairs Interim Committee] is that if we don’t pass legislation this session in 2025, we’re not passing anything until 2027 at the very earliest and we know this is probably coming.”

Sounds reasonable, but there are issues with that from the Montana Broadcasters Association–in which KGEZ is a member. The concern is that broadcasters would be held responsible for any violations. In both cases, the members carrying both House Bill 178 and Senate Bill 25 said they’d make modification to make sure that doesn’t happen.

KGEZ 20-20 News thanks Clayton Murphy, of the University of Montana School of Journalism, for his work on this story. The Montana Broadcasters and the Newspapers Associations and the Greater Montana Foundation provided funding for these reports.

 

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