Vermont committee reviews state AI statutes, ADS inventory and pending ‘deepfake’ disclosure bill

MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Vermont House Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure spent its May 6 meeting reviewing state laws and proposed legislation related to artificial intelligence, focusing on how state government uses automated decision systems and several bills that would regulate private-sector uses of AI.

Rick Sagle of the Office of Legislative Council briefed the committee on the history and text of recent Vermont actions on AI, saying the legislature first moved on the topic in 2018 with what he identified as Act 137 and later codified a set of requirements and entities in 2022. "This statute only regulates the state's use of AI," Sagle said, describing requirements that the Agency of Digital Services (ADS) maintain an annual inventory of automated decision systems used by the executive branch.

The inventory that ADS must produce, Sagle explained, requires agencies to report vendor names and a description of systems' capabilities, whether systems have been tested for bias by an independent third party or are untested, the system's purpose and proposed use, data storage and sharing practices, and estimated acquisition and operating…