Committee adopts amendment narrowing basis for Oregon ban on certain AI on state IT

SALEM, Ore. — The Joint Committee on Information, Management, and Technology on May 9 adopted a Dash-1 amendment to House Bill 3936 that changes how the state would bar some artificial‑intelligence tools from use on state information technology assets.

The amendment, described to the committee by staffer Sean, removes language that would have prohibited software, hardware or services “developed or owned by a corporate entity that is incorporated or registered under the laws of a foreign country,” and instead ties exclusion to whether a covered vendor or product poses “a national security threat to the country, or a cyber security threat to the state of Oregon.” Sean told the committee the bill “prohibits any hardware, software, or service that uses artificial intelligence from being installed or downloaded onto or used or accessed by state information technology assets if the artificial intelligence is developed or owned by a…