Speaker 1: This week's episode of the trip Cast is sponsored by
Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune Membership program as we celebrate Amplify Austin. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Texas Tribune Trip Cast for March fourth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. I'm Matthew Watkins, editor in Chief of
Speaker 1: the Tribune. My two co hosts, Eleanor Klibanoff and James
Speaker 1: Berragon are nursing their oscar parties hangover, aren't able to
Speaker 1: make it today, so instead I am joined by Cherry Greenberg,
Speaker 1: a former state representative and professor of practice at the
Speaker 1: LBJ School of Government at the UT Austin.
Speaker 3: Hello, Sherry, thanks for being.
Speaker 2: Here, my pleasure. Hello.
Speaker 1: So today we are going to be talking about a
Speaker 1: subject that you have been studying for several years now,
Speaker 1: many years even before it became sort of the buzzword
Speaker 1: in the Texas capital and beyond the idea of artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence and regulating it at this date level, When the
Speaker 1: idea of regulating businesses comes up in the legislature, there's
Speaker 1: usually a pretty strong consensus among Republicans to sort of
Speaker 1: stay out of the way in the name of growth
Speaker 1: and free enterprise. But the conversation this year around regulating
Speaker 1: AI is turning out to be a little bit more complex.
Speaker 1: You have powerful conservatives such as Senate Business and Commerce
Speaker 1: Chairman Charles Schwartner and the Chair of the House Doge Committee,
Speaker 1: Giovanni Copriglioni, comparing carrying bills that would impose strong guardrails
Speaker 1: and rules for the technology, but they're finding some opposition
Speaker 1: from members of their own party. Senator Lewis Cole course
Speaker 1: was questioning a bill by Schwartner earlier last week. Tech
Speaker 1: impresario Joe Lonsdale has really come out against some of
Speaker 1: the legislation, despite being pretty usually aligned with Republicans in
Speaker 1: the state. It's a fight that sort of avoids that
Speaker 1: partisan brack breakdown. But I think there's some fear kind
Speaker 1: of driving both sides. On one hand, you have lawmakers
Speaker 1: worried about the dangers of AI on people's privacy, their freedom,
Speaker 1: and the possibility that really important decisions might be made
Speaker 1: by computers not people. On the other side, you have
Speaker 1: folks who are worried about going too far and restricting
Speaker 1: AI that would leave Texas behind other states in the
Speaker 1: technology and maybe even pulling the United States with them
Speaker 1: behind adversaries like China. So Sherry, You, like I said,
Speaker 1: have been watching this for a very long time. A
Speaker 1: lot of the focus so far earlier on this session
Speaker 1: is on a major bill called TREGA, the Texas Responsible
Speaker 1: AI Governance Act. Can we start by just having you
Speaker 1: explain what's in that bill?
Speaker 2: Sure? And for background, which you really alluded to, is
Speaker 2: what I call the promise in peril of AI. Right,
Speaker 2: there's great promise with AI with artificial intelligence and healthcare
Speaker 2: detecting diseases that we wouldn't be able to, but there's
Speaker 2: peril too. So if we can use healthcare and as
Speaker 2: an example, big privacy issues, and we also talk about
Speaker 2: balancing innovation with rules and policies and regulations that provide transparency,
Speaker 2: accountability and guard against invasion and privacy. And so that's
Speaker 2: really what we're dealing with here. And with artificial intelligence,
Speaker 2: we do find that there are a lot of common
Speaker 2: concerns across political parties and sometimes you find alliances that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't elsewhere, and you also alluded to that. So
Speaker 2: with TREGA, this is a bill that was filed its
Speaker 2: House Bill seventeen oh nine by Representative Giovanni Capriconi, and
Speaker 2: there was a lot of discussion about this bill over
Speaker 2: the interim. He had a very large stakeholder group that
Speaker 2: many of us participated in meetings and whatnot, and I
Speaker 2: think he knew that this is a bill that would
Speaker 2: have a lot of discussion once it was filed. So
Speaker 2: TREGA is really a builds based on risk mitigation, and
Speaker 2: this is what the EU bill really is based on.
Speaker 2: And also other states such as Colorado which we can
Speaker 2: look to, and it's mitigating against risk, which is also
Speaker 2: what this the Nationaltitude for Standards has really set out
Speaker 2: in its framework, which is part of the National Science Foundation.
Speaker 2: So TREGA would create obligations for developers and deployers of
Speaker 2: any AI system that is a contribution, you know, decisions
Speaker 2: relating to employment, finance, healthcare. Texas would also be the
Speaker 2: first state to require high risk AI system distributors to
Speaker 2: take reasonable care. The bill would ban AI systems that
Speaker 2: pose unacceptable risk. Private litigans would have limited right of action.
Speaker 2: The law would require generative AI to developers to keep
Speaker 2: detailed records of data sets used to It would exempt
Speaker 2: many small businesses. So you can see it's very much
Speaker 2: a risk based system. It is also a build that
Speaker 2: very much focuses on what we call algorithmic discrimination, and
Speaker 2: in the bill, that means any condition in which an
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence system, when deployed, creates an on lawful discrimination
Speaker 2: of a protected classification in violation of the laws of
Speaker 2: this state or federal law. And then it further goes
Speaker 2: on because you're wondering, what's an artificial intelligence system? Right?
Speaker 2: That means the use of machine learning and related technologies
Speaker 2: that use data to train statistical models for the purpose
Speaker 2: of enabling computer systems to perform tasks normally associated with
Speaker 2: human intelligence. And this is really where we get into
Speaker 2: the AI, the artificial intelligence realm or perception such as
Speaker 2: computer vision, speech, or natural language processing and content generation.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's a few things that are sort of
Speaker 1: key phrases in this bill, one of which you already
Speaker 1: mentioned high risk AI systems. What do we mean by
Speaker 1: a high risk system in this case.
Speaker 2: So a high risk system in this bill, and again
Speaker 2: this bill is really based on risk mitigation. High risk
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence system means an artificial intelligence system that is
Speaker 2: a substantial factor in a consequential decision. The term, though,
Speaker 2: does not include an artificial system. If the artificial intelligence
Speaker 2: system is intended to detect decision making patterns or deviation
Speaker 2: from prior decision making patterns, and is not intended to
Speaker 2: replace or influence a previously completed human assessment without sufficient
Speaker 2: human review. So the following technologies unless the technologies, when deployed,
Speaker 2: make or a substantial factor in making a consequential decision.
Speaker 2: And a malware anti virus calculation, cybersecurity database is data storage, firewall,
Speaker 2: internal domain. The list goes on and on.
Speaker 3: So those are things that are not included in the building.
Speaker 1: But what we're really talking about here are basically using
Speaker 1: AI using computers to make kind of important, impactful decisions
Speaker 1: about customers or people in this state.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, okay, And.
Speaker 1: I think the other interesting thing is the idea of
Speaker 1: using reasonable care. Right, this this idea that if essentially
Speaker 1: it's up to the developers, the people you know, like
Speaker 1: open ai or or you know, Twitters developing some some
Speaker 1: AI systems and things like that, or even the distributors
Speaker 1: or the employer, the deployers, the people who are you know,
Speaker 1: utilizing an AI system to evaluate, you know, whatever it
Speaker 1: is they might do, make decisions about healthcare, health insurance
Speaker 1: and things like that. What it's basically saying is that
Speaker 1: they need to take steps that are done reasonably to
Speaker 1: protect people from that kind of discrimination in the system.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 2: That is exactly right? And there is a kind of
Speaker 2: I guess provision you would say for piloting, you know,
Speaker 2: with a sandbox where there can be some innovation taking place.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, very good. And so I mean what's interesting here.
Speaker 1: This is the bill that's gotten a lot of attention.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see whether it advances in its
Speaker 1: current form, and we can talk about that a little
Speaker 1: bit more. But what's really struck me about this is
Speaker 1: there was a lot of conversation, you know, when when
Speaker 1: chat GPT was really out there, a lot of conversation
Speaker 1: about the dangers of AI. A lot of those felt
Speaker 1: like sort of conversations around existential dangers for humanity.
Speaker 3: Right, are the right going to take over?
Speaker 2: Yes, sentient and they're not cynient.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, And that's not really what this is protecting about.
Speaker 1: This is more about privacy concerns. Are AI you know,
Speaker 1: basically things without a conscience is going to be making
Speaker 1: you know, life or death or you know, major financial
Speaker 1: decisions for the lives of people in Texas.
Speaker 3: Is that is that right?
Speaker 2: Yes, this is not about whether AI is, as we say, sentient, right,
Speaker 2: It is about looking at those areas that people are
Speaker 2: most concerned about when they talk about AI, protecting their privacy,
Speaker 2: having transparency, having accountability, knowing when you know AI is
Speaker 2: being used. The bill, you know, requires the as we said,
Speaker 2: an unacceptable risk. It prohibits systems that without express consent,
Speaker 2: identify emotions, capture biometic intent, you know, those attributes that
Speaker 2: were really sensitive about as people in this atmosphere. It
Speaker 2: also would require generative AI developers to keep detailed records
Speaker 2: of data sets that they used to train. So the bill,
Speaker 2: again going back to the unist frame work, really looks
Speaker 2: at risk and risk management and some of those perils
Speaker 2: that we talk about. The risk management framework looks at governmap,
Speaker 2: measure and manage and that is a framework that has
Speaker 2: been used by NIS, really by the EU, by Colorado
Speaker 2: and other states. Now that's not to say that people
Speaker 2: everyone is happy about it, right, and really with AI,
Speaker 2: we can go back to nineteen fifty with Alan Turing r.
Speaker 2: AI has been with us a long time and in
Speaker 2: our daily lives. But until chat GPT appeared on the scene,
Speaker 2: people weren't really cognizant about it. Once people became cognizant,
Speaker 2: then it's oh, what does this mean for my privacy?
Speaker 2: My data? Is there transparency? Do I know when AI
Speaker 2: is being used? However, there is this, as I said,
Speaker 2: promise in peril or this also this issue of how
Speaker 2: do we have innovation right without too much risk? As
Speaker 2: you mentioned, people are concerned if this stifles innovation, where
Speaker 2: will that mean for us as a state? We know
Speaker 2: that we're getting ready to have some big investments in
Speaker 2: this state right in AI. What would that mean for
Speaker 2: the country you mentioned China, And of course we've heard
Speaker 2: a lot about China and AI recently. But on the
Speaker 2: other hand, people really are concerned about I would say,
Speaker 2: their privacy and about this algorithmic discrimination in decision making
Speaker 2: and also other areas. There are other bills, of course,
Speaker 2: have been filed dealing with using AI for mental health,
Speaker 2: or using AI and making decisions with insurance and healthcare.
Speaker 2: So there are other concerns that people have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like the would you say, the broad
Speaker 1: kind of fee of a lot of these bills is
Speaker 1: sort of designed from a kind of consumer protection standpoint.
Speaker 2: Yes, I would say it is designed from a consumer
Speaker 2: protection and transparency standpoint. The bills, you know, they may say, well,
Speaker 2: you can use it for mental health, but there has
Speaker 2: to be a provider involved. Keeping the human in the loop.
Speaker 2: I would say, you know, when you're looking at health insurance,
Speaker 2: you know you have to disclose perhaps that you're using
Speaker 2: eye and you have to if it's for specialty care,
Speaker 2: specialist for instance, has to review it. So consumer protection,
Speaker 2: transparency and accountability and kind of I would say, keeping
Speaker 2: that human in the loop.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because in some ways this feels like a
Speaker 1: very familiar kind of conversation between innovation and industry and
Speaker 1: creation and all those kinds of things, and you know,
Speaker 1: the consumer protection, the fears about the negative impacts of
Speaker 1: this technology, and I just I find it a little
Speaker 1: bit striking that we're seeing, you know, at least a
Speaker 1: significant segment of the Republican Party sort of going in
Speaker 1: the direction of consumer protection this time around. What do
Speaker 1: you think it is that's different about AI that's setting
Speaker 1: up this conversation.
Speaker 2: Well, certainly, I think that there are a lot of
Speaker 2: legislators who have followed the path that for instance, social
Speaker 2: media took and lack of privacy with data and they're
Speaker 2: feeling that this is a big concern of their constituents.
Speaker 2: And seeing now with AI, you know, your data, your
Speaker 2: personal data is being used to train it. For instance,
Speaker 2: your personal data may be available. You may not know
Speaker 2: when it's being used. It may you know, is it
Speaker 2: making decisions without a human and a loop. And I
Speaker 2: think that those are issues that you know trands, they're
Speaker 2: they're beyond party boundaries, and that many constituents across the
Speaker 2: board are very concerned with these issues and concerned with
Speaker 2: the I would say, the path for instance, that data
Speaker 2: and social media has taken with you know, lack of
Speaker 2: privacy and now seeing AI.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean among the things in this this trega bill,
Speaker 1: it bans deep fakes right, and certain use of biomarkers
Speaker 1: like facial recognition that you know, they don't want people
Speaker 1: pulling a bunch of pictures from Facebook to be able
Speaker 1: to identify your face, you know, wherever you are walking
Speaker 1: across the street. Another thing it bans is social scoring,
Speaker 1: which I'm quoting from the MIT Technology Review. The definition
Speaker 1: of that a practice in which authoritarian governments, specifically China,
Speaker 1: rank people's trustworthiness and punish them for undesirable behaviors such
Speaker 1: as stealing or not paying back loans. Right essentially seen
Speaker 1: as a you know, sort of way to rank citizens
Speaker 1: or or identify citizens as types of risk and that
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, I think, you know, another big
Speaker 1: part of the Republican Party is freedom right. And there
Speaker 1: were a little bit about surveillance and just you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's big companies or the government itself sort of
Speaker 1: you know, reaching into the personal lives in a way
Speaker 1: that feels uncomfortable to that's right.
Speaker 2: It's that privacy issue. They're very concerned about you not
Speaker 2: knowing your data is being used, you not knowing that
Speaker 2: your face is being used, to the biometric markers, your
Speaker 2: voice being taken. You know, there was a case in
Speaker 2: Arizona over a year ago, a really horrible situation, and
Speaker 2: there was legislation in the Arizona legislature where there was
Speaker 2: a deep fake of a young woman's voice and it
Speaker 2: was it was her voice, and they called her mother
Speaker 2: and her younger was there too, and said that she
Speaker 2: had been kidnapped asking for ransom. Well, in fact, she
Speaker 2: had not been kidnapped, and that was not her voice,
Speaker 2: but it was a replica, let's say, of her voice
Speaker 2: a deep fake. So there are a lot of concerns
Speaker 2: I think about criminal elements, about privacy, and as you said,
Speaker 2: about freedom, my freedom to walk down the street without
Speaker 2: being ranked as a threat to society, or my freedom
Speaker 2: to control how my image and likeness and voices being used.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Today's trip cast is presented by the Texas Tribune Membership program.
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Speaker 1: independent journalism by making a donation online today. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a little bit about just
Speaker 1: the state's ability to succeed in this process.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: We saw a you know, after this bill came out.
Speaker 1: Joe Lonsdale, who I mentioned sort of in the opening,
Speaker 1: a venture capitalist, a very influential one both politically and
Speaker 1: in the tech world, came out very strongly against this
Speaker 1: trega bill. He says he did kill innovation, kill jobs,
Speaker 1: let China win the AI race. He essentially argued that
Speaker 1: it would create a new AI governing agency in Texas
Speaker 1: and see the regulation of AI to you know, bureaucrats, right,
Speaker 1: the dread of bureaucrats tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the industry response.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, and it's not you know, you mentioned his statements,
Speaker 2: but he's not the only one. There were articles, I
Speaker 2: think in Forbes there was an opinion piece, and I
Speaker 2: believe the Dallas Morning News last week.
Speaker 1: If you google TREGA, all the top links are industry
Speaker 1: aligned groups with articles and other things kind of speaking
Speaker 1: out against this.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, there was another article, everything is bigger
Speaker 2: in Texas. TREGA is no exception. But will it, you know,
Speaker 2: provide accountability? So and they're saying no, it wouldn't. And
Speaker 2: so any time that you file a significant bill, Having
Speaker 2: spent ten years in the legislature myself, I can tell
Speaker 2: you that you're going it's a starting point, and you're
Speaker 2: going to expect that there will be changes, that there
Speaker 2: will be amendments. And with a bill like this, even
Speaker 2: though there was a stakeholder group and a lot of input,
Speaker 2: I think the bill that's filed, I think it's safe
Speaker 2: to say probably is not going to be the final
Speaker 2: piece of legislation, and so we take it as a
Speaker 2: starting point. And certainly there is this concern about innovation.
Speaker 2: You know, we're in another industrial revolution, and with every
Speaker 2: industrial revolution, whether you say we're in the fourth or
Speaker 2: fifth or whatever, you know, we have seen concerns about
Speaker 2: the you know, the perils of the new technology, but
Speaker 2: also the promise. And there are concerns, you know, with
Speaker 2: AI about work and future work, for instance, will people
Speaker 2: be out of jobs or will there be new jobs?
Speaker 2: And we can look back at history and see this,
Speaker 2: So I think there there is a real issue here
Speaker 2: with balancing innovation and protecting people's freedom and privacy and
Speaker 2: having that transparency and that when you file a bill
Speaker 2: like this, you know you can expect that there will
Speaker 2: be some.
Speaker 3: Amendments, right right, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 1: I Lonsdale, after he put out a little sort of
Speaker 1: a tweet threadgras this, he came back not too long
Speaker 1: later said he met with quote relevant leaders in Texas
Speaker 1: and that they agreed, again I'm quoting him, conservatives must
Speaker 1: block the creation of AI regulatory agencies.
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: It sounds like there is there's going to be some
Speaker 1: resistance to some of these ideas. Right here, I want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about enforcement here. So the
Speaker 1: bill as it's currently laid out, would place enforcement in
Speaker 1: the hands of the Attorney generals. That's correct, organizations that
Speaker 1: violate the rules and that would be subject to fines
Speaker 1: in the like ten thousand dollars range per instance. But
Speaker 1: of course we know that a lot of these things
Speaker 1: are done on a mass scale, so those ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars finds can can really add up. I mean, you
Speaker 1: may remember the Attorney General's lawsuit against Facebook for use
Speaker 1: of facial recognition. Again, it was one of those you know,
Speaker 1: individual finds. Those individual finds ended up adding up to
Speaker 1: one point four billion dollars worth of settlements. So you
Speaker 1: could really see, you know, some aggressive actions related to this.
Speaker 1: But I mean, one of the things I wonder about
Speaker 1: is I read this bill is Texas state government isn't
Speaker 1: exactly known for being a tech know, logically advanced, and
Speaker 1: how it goes about things. I mean, you know, the
Speaker 1: computer systems, all those types of things.
Speaker 2: Well, there is another bill that calls for training of
Speaker 2: certain employees on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3: Well there you go.
Speaker 1: I mean, what does Texas have the capacity to regulate this.
Speaker 1: Do you think if even if a bill like this
Speaker 1: were to.
Speaker 2: Be passed, you know, the Attorney General's Office, as you said,
Speaker 2: would be the enforcement mechanism, not the Department of Information Resources,
Speaker 2: does it have the capacity? I think that depends on
Speaker 2: the who are the employees and what training do they have?
Speaker 2: And as I said, I think that is incredibly important
Speaker 2: having of course the systems in place, but also the
Speaker 2: training of state employees.
Speaker 1: Okay, and so the other thing here to be thinking
Speaker 1: of is just again that debate. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: going on in a lot of different ways. I think
Speaker 1: one conversation is do you do this in a piecemeal approach?
Speaker 1: Right with individual you know, here's an AI healthcare bill,
Speaker 1: as an AI education bill and all those types of things.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different measures about that. But
Speaker 1: even when you get into the individual cases, it can
Speaker 1: it can get a little bit dicey when you go
Speaker 1: into the details. There was a conversation in the Senate
Speaker 1: Business and Commerce Committee last week Charles Schwartner finding a
Speaker 1: bill that would ban health insurers from using AI to
Speaker 1: deny treatment or downcoading patient's treatment. He argued pretty passionately
Speaker 1: against the idea I'm quoting here that insurers are quote
Speaker 1: deploying AI that is focused on their bottom line in
Speaker 1: my opinion, over you know, patient well being basically.
Speaker 3: But los culd course.
Speaker 1: Another very conservative senator came right back at it and said,
Speaker 1: you know, this bill could cost billions of dollars to
Speaker 1: the state, right that we have you know, Medicaid programs
Speaker 1: and things like that that might be able to use
Speaker 1: AI to root out fraud or identify in efficiencies and
Speaker 1: things like that. And I understand that there's fears, but
Speaker 1: there's also real opportunities here for.
Speaker 2: It to get back to the promise and the peril again, right,
Speaker 2: And this has been a national issue. You've probably seen
Speaker 2: some headlines nationally about insurers using AI and were they
Speaker 2: relying solely on an algorithm to deny coverage and insurance,
Speaker 2: particularly for specialty care. And there have been several bills filed,
Speaker 2: as I mentioned, dealing with healthcare, with mental health, and
Speaker 2: with health insurance. And I think the question will be
Speaker 2: do you have a bill that denies the use of
Speaker 2: AI completely or do you have a bill that says
Speaker 2: you can use AI. But as I said, you have
Speaker 2: to have a human in the loop, a human has
Speaker 2: to review it. And you know there are other bills
Speaker 2: that have been filed that say, well, you can use AI. However,
Speaker 2: if it's specialty care, the specialist, for instance, has to
Speaker 2: review it, so you keep that human in the loop.
Speaker 2: And a lot of what we're seeing around the country
Speaker 2: and around the world is that discussion of whether it's
Speaker 2: in domestic violence cases in Spain where you had a
Speaker 2: situation where a particularly police department was relying solely on
Speaker 2: AI predictive analysis to say whether an abuse or would
Speaker 2: abuse again, and there was not a human in the loop,
Speaker 2: and a woman ended up dying. And so a lot
Speaker 2: of the conversation now has turned to using it but
Speaker 2: ensuring that a human makes the final decision and is reviewing.
Speaker 2: So I think it's this discussion of where are you
Speaker 2: on this continuum. Do you not use it at all,
Speaker 2: do you use it and you solely rely on the AI,
Speaker 2: or are you somewhere in the middle in this continuum
Speaker 2: where you use it. But you must have humans and
Speaker 2: professionals who are in the loop and who are reviewing
Speaker 2: and making the final decision.
Speaker 1: How important is it that the legislature figure out some
Speaker 1: answers to that question this session. I mean one of
Speaker 1: the challenges of the Texas legislature is they only meet
Speaker 1: every two years. That's right, at the pace that technology
Speaker 1: is growing and changing. Is this sort of their last
Speaker 1: chance to sort of put down a marker on this,
Speaker 1: do you think? Well?
Speaker 2: I think that's why you have seen so many bills
Speaker 2: filed this session. As you said, technology is changing, as
Speaker 2: we are doing, as we are talking right now, right,
Speaker 2: and with the biennial legislature, you do have limited opportunities.
Speaker 2: And again with chat GPT, with what we've seen with
Speaker 2: health insurance and others. Yes, I think that there are
Speaker 2: many members across the board who feel that it is
Speaker 2: important this session to get a handle on this and
Speaker 2: pass some legislation.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean my other question is is the state
Speaker 1: level the right level to be doing this?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of this employment will I mean,
Speaker 1: this AI deployment will be happening outside the state but
Speaker 1: affecting Texans, but it also affects you know, Californians and
Speaker 1: right Vermontors and everyone or else? I mean, should this
Speaker 1: not be a federal level discussion as opposed to a
Speaker 1: state level well?
Speaker 2: Or should it be a worldwide I mean technology does
Speaker 2: not know boundaries, right. And this is a really good
Speaker 2: question because as we know, you know, federal law superseded
Speaker 2: state laws, and state laws supersede local laws. So the
Speaker 2: Austin City of Austin has been looking at policies and
Speaker 2: looking closely at what's happening with TREGA. They want to,
Speaker 2: you know, align they have common issues and concerns, for instance.
Speaker 2: But what you tend to see is when you don't
Speaker 2: have action at the federal level. So we have had
Speaker 2: no congressional action and we you know, the Biden executive
Speaker 2: Order of course no longer exists. And so when you
Speaker 2: don't have action at the federal level, and legislators have constituents,
Speaker 2: and if those constituents have concerns, what you see is
Speaker 2: there's this vacuum, and you will see the states, not
Speaker 2: just Texas, step in. And if constituents at the local
Speaker 2: level have concerns, right, and the states are not stepping in,
Speaker 2: you will see individual cities step in. And then you
Speaker 2: will see industry say, wait a minute, we have this
Speaker 2: patchwork of different cities within the state or different states, right.
Speaker 2: I think that what happens in a Texas is very
Speaker 2: important whether it's textbooks or AI right regulation because we
Speaker 2: have a very large population here in this state, right,
Speaker 2: and so that's important whether it's Texas or California or Florida,
Speaker 2: New York. And you do see this kind of alignment
Speaker 2: of states who have already passed or are considering around
Speaker 2: this NIST model, the one that the e used use,
Speaker 2: the one that Colorado used around mitigating risk.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, and.
Speaker 1: What about just there's other aspects to this too, which
Speaker 1: is trying to attract you know, while you're thinking about
Speaker 1: how you regulate it, you're also trying to attract companies
Speaker 1: and developers into this state. I mean, Joe Lonsdale is
Speaker 1: an example of that. You came from California two crisis.
Speaker 1: There has been a lot of activity recently. You saw
Speaker 1: Apple make an announcement of a development data center in Houston.
Speaker 1: Facebook bringing their content moderation staff here. I mean yes,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly after Trump one the election, there is
Speaker 1: data centers exactly. There seems to be a lot of
Speaker 1: interest in bringing folks here. But that creates its own challenges,
Speaker 1: not just in terms of how you regulate it, but
Speaker 1: also how do you build.
Speaker 3: Up the infrastructure to support it.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the power grid and
Speaker 1: how that ruts into this.
Speaker 2: Yes, certainly we've heard a lot about the power grid
Speaker 2: in Texas over the past few years. We seem to
Speaker 2: everyone or be having some very very cold weather at times,
Speaker 2: and we know that we have our own grid. Now
Speaker 2: there's discussion about some connectivity with another grid, but we'll
Speaker 2: put that aside for the moment. Texas has its own
Speaker 2: power grid. And it's not just power, it's water. So
Speaker 2: these data centers, whether they're beings for AI or crypto right,
Speaker 2: use an enormous amount of power and an enormous amount
Speaker 2: of water and they're noisy, right, And so there are
Speaker 2: concerns about the power grid and will there be the
Speaker 2: capacity and should there be requirements for some of these
Speaker 2: data centers to have their own source of power you
Speaker 2: know many nuclear or other sources that people are talking about.
Speaker 2: And what does it mean also for water, we know
Speaker 2: that this is a major session for water and last
Speaker 2: session was too a lot of funding, but this is
Speaker 2: a really really major session for water and water supply
Speaker 2: and distribution. And how does that fit in with the
Speaker 2: data centers because they also use a lot of water?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, and then there's one more aspect that I
Speaker 1: want to talk about, which is how are we preparing
Speaker 1: you know, our students are our future workforce for an
Speaker 1: AI world. Is that a topic that is that is
Speaker 1: being discussed in the capital as well. Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And it's a topic that I have spent a
Speaker 2: lot of time on the past years and continue to.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that learning begins, you know, the
Speaker 2: day you're born, and it ends the day you leave
Speaker 2: this earth, and that it's very important that we be
Speaker 2: cognizant starting in elementary school all the way through people's PhDs,
Speaker 2: that they have the appropriate curriculum related to AI. You know,
Speaker 2: is coding going away, Well, it's coding at a different level.
Speaker 2: I think that it's very important that we focus on
Speaker 2: our students and the residents being continuous learners, having critical
Speaker 2: thinking skills, having people's skills, being able to write, and
Speaker 2: continuous learning, and that we look at jobs where they
Speaker 2: may need new trading right as we say, upskilling or reskilling,
Speaker 2: and that this be part of our curriculum in an
Speaker 2: appropriate manner throughout education and beyond, whether we're partnering with
Speaker 2: community colleges or industry. And there are many that need
Speaker 2: within their own organizations to have this continuous training, whether
Speaker 2: you're a large city or a major nonprofit, or a
Speaker 2: big company or even a smaller company.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I hear when people talk about sort
Speaker 1: of AI's impact on work in the you know, near future,
Speaker 1: they talk a lot about how, you know, AI can
Speaker 1: be a very very speedy and useful intern or entry
Speaker 1: level employee.
Speaker 2: Right right, everybody's adding an assistant exactly.
Speaker 1: You can you talk about coding it? Can it can
Speaker 1: write code when given direction, Yes, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: at a law firm, you know, it can maybe do
Speaker 1: some of that paralegal work. That's that early kind of
Speaker 1: work in sort of reviewing documents, legal system exactly what
Speaker 1: it's not quite there yet on is making big strategic
Speaker 1: decisions and everything like that. So how how does the
Speaker 1: education system adjust for that world?
Speaker 2: One of the ways that the education system needs to
Speaker 2: adjust for that world is really focusing on the critical
Speaker 2: thinking skills of students. Right, So, you may be a
Speaker 2: financial analyst, but it's no longer there are no more
Speaker 2: Excel spreadsheets, right, you have AI, and you need those
Speaker 2: higher link level critical thinking skills to do the analysis.
Speaker 2: You may be a coder, but you're coding at a
Speaker 2: different level because AI is doing the we'll call it
Speaker 2: fundamental coding. Right. You know, you may be a paralegal,
Speaker 2: but you are now needing to think at that higher level.
Speaker 2: And so that is really what is so important, those
Speaker 2: analytical skills, those critical thinking skills, being nimble. Also, there
Speaker 2: are various situations where AI does not and I don't
Speaker 2: think ever will have the capability. And that's for instance,
Speaker 2: if empathy is required, right, if it's a situation with
Speaker 2: a doctor or a lawyer, or a teacher or an
Speaker 2: educator where you have to have those people skills, the
Speaker 2: empathy leadership within organizations.
Speaker 1: Okay, and so I guess here's my last question. How
Speaker 1: confident do you feel in the state's ability to get
Speaker 1: this right this session? How this feels like a complicated issue.
Speaker 1: It feels like there's a lot of nuance, a lot
Speaker 1: of expertise needed. Is the Texas legislature equipped to end
Speaker 1: in a good place in early June?
Speaker 2: Texas legislature has dealt, is dealing and will deal with
Speaker 2: in the future a lot of very complicated issues. And
Speaker 2: I think that the process is set up, you know,
Speaker 2: it's set up frankly, to kill bills, not to pass them. Say,
Speaker 2: visualize the Summer Olympics with those people who are running
Speaker 2: the hurdles one after another. So the system is set
Speaker 2: up really to vet bills, to get input, to have amendments,
Speaker 2: to have discussion, to get to a place where people
Speaker 2: feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we will watch and see what happens. Indeed,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. Thank you to
Speaker 1: Rob and Chris. A reminder the Texas Tribuunion membership program
Speaker 1: as participating in Amplify Austin this week. Please check out
Speaker 1: our website if you would like to donate and contribute.
Speaker 1: Eleanor and James will be back next week and we'll
Speaker 1: see you then