US tech regulation will develop locally

Subject

Tech regulation in the United States.

Significance

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on December 10 amended its ban on facial recognition software to allow for Apple iPhones that use facial identification for unlocking the phone. The move reflects the difficulty cities and states face in regulating artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies that have privacy and security implications: while they are legally permitted to regulate, the efficacy of localities’ reforms runs into challenges in a largely unregulated national scene.

Impacts

• AI in policing will attract attention, since municipalities are the jurisdiction for most US police.
• AI adoption will accentuate ethical concerns about racial discrimination in policing as reports of bias in algorithms proliferate.
• AI has a low chance of becoming polarised; the tech sector has Republican and Democratic friends.