Senate Dems ask OMB for more regulations, support to mitigate algorithm bias
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks to reporters alongside Sens. Richard Blumenthal (L) and Ed Markey (R). Schumer and Markey are asking OMB to do more to mitigate AI bias at federal agencies. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
Sens. Ed Markey and Chuck Schumer are seeking updated guidance and organizational structures to prevent artificial intelligence from discrimination.
Two Democratic senators are asking leadership in the Biden administration to do more to mitigate risks of artificial intelligence algorithms making biased decisions.
Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young in a Monday letter that federal agencies need to establish more safeguards to prevent algorithmic discrimination.
“Without new protections, today’s supercharged, AI-powered algorithms risk reinforcing and magnifying the discrimination that marginalized communities already experience due to poorly-trained and -tested algorithms,” the letter reads. “The stakes — and harms — are especially high where entities use algorithms to make ‘consequential decisions,’ such as an individual’s application for a job, their treatment at a hospital, their admission to an educational institution, or their qualification for a mortgage.”
The senators want federal agencies utilizing AI technologies in their operations to be required to develop safeguards and build capacity around civil rights protections around AI. Algorithmic discrimination has caught federal attention before, notably when the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a warning in may of this year to bring attention to how AI-assisted application software could erroneously discriminate against applicants.
Markey and Schumer note that the Biden administration has also taken “significant steps” to reduce the room for algorithmic discrimination, mainly through guidance mandated by President Joe Biden’s AI executive order.
They noted that OMB in particular has spearheaded much of these mandates, and the agency’s latest AI policies and guidance, specifically around “rights-impacting AI.”
The senators recommend that OMB provide agency chief AI officers with adequate resources and expertise to mitigate AI algorithms’ threats to civil liberties, and to establish and fund civil rights offices at agencies that are using AI in decision making where such offices don't currently exist.
“These new offices — along with existing civil rights offices — should be staffed with technologists and experts in algorithmic discrimination whose job responsibilities include mitigating algorithmic bias and discrimination and facilitating proactive and ongoing outreach to civil rights stakeholders and affected populations,” the lawmakers wrote.
In addition to increased guidance and workforce to focus on mitigating algorithmic-based harm, the senators ask OMB to provide evidence that customers of federal government services can opt out of utilizing AI-powered algorithms, a choice seen with AI-powered algorithms in biometrics technologies.