Elon Musk’s xAI has filed a federal lawsuit against Colorado state’s proposed AI governance rules that are scheduled to go live on June 20. In the lawsuit, xAI has raised concerns that if Colorado’s AI laws do go into effect, they could lead to developers changing how they design AI and create hurdles in how AI services in the state would respond.
Colorado’s AI governance legislation — SB24-205 — was finalized and signed into law in May 2024 by Governor Jared Polis. xAI, in its lawsuit, has said that Colorado is moving towards stifling AI growth in the name of “consumer protection”.
The rules would require AI developers and businesses to conduct annual impact audits and disclose potential chances of biases to the state’s Attorney General.
“SB24-205 gives the Attorney General a massive amount of interpretive and rulemaking power. The statute’s use of vague, relative and uncertain terms gives developers no fair notice of what mitigation or disclosures are required, and hands the Colorado Attorney General virtually unfettered discretion to enforce the law arbitrarily against his political opponents,” the lawsuit read.
Amid the notable influx of AI across sectors, Colorado has identified some areas wherein its use could put users under “high risk”. These include areas like hiring, lending, and healthcare among others.
Colorado has directed AI entities to maintain detailed technical documentation around their products and services to ensure legal checks if necessary.
“Forcing developers to create and disseminate information is also not the least restrictive means for accomplishing the State’s goals. It is not even clear why disclosures about developers’ techniques for measuring and mitigating bias in training datasets and model performance would provide meaningfully more information than simply testing the model-something that the State (or any developer, for that matter) can do on its own,” xAI’s legal filing added.
The lawsuit spans 75 pages and raises multiple concerns regarding Colorado’s upcoming lawsuit.
It claims that the laws could restrict AI developers from giving responses that could be deemed disliked by the state authorities. In addition, Colorado is also set to give its residents the right to appeal automated decisions that negatively affect them.
xAI has urged the Colorado District Court to review how unconstitutional the proposed laws are. If Colorado’s rules are passed, xAI-‘s genAI platform Grok could have to change its outputs to keep in line with the state’s view on subjects like equality and diversity.
Source: CourtHouseNews
In the past, Grok has come under the scanner for throwing up controversial responses to user queries. The platform had faced flak in Turkey and Poland in around September and October last year for politically inaccurate information and antisemitic responses.
The Colorado court is yet to set a hearing for this lawsuit.