Kevin DeBré was recently quoted in Brendan Pierson’s Law.com article “Onerous Bill Offers Early Sign That AI Developers Will Face Massive Litigation Risks,” which discusses the Aligning Incentives for Leadership, Excellence, and Advancement in Development Act (“AI LEAD Act”) and how it may affect AI developers and legal professionals operating in this space. The AI LEAD Act would classify artificial intelligence systems as products, allowing for federal lawsuits to be brought by consumers and general state lawyers against AI developers and deployers whose software uses machine learning to make decisions that potentially cause harm to consumers.
Historically, plaintiffs have looked towards older products to draw comparisons, and Kevin shares that the proposed law could potentially bring “clarity” to an area that has been relatively vague for plaintiffs. Kevin tells Law.com that this law is “expedient in that it enables claimants not go through the process of drawing analogies from existing case law.” However, while it may be more practical at times, since AI products do not have a standard of care, many issues open to interpretation by the courts can arise.
Kevin explains that AI companies employ a practice called “red teaming” to anticipate potential unwanted consequences of a product and how it might be misused. He elaborates that although companies use these procedures, it does not predict all potential results and “just the fact that you go through a red teaming exercise doesn’t insulate a developer from liability.”
The new law would have numerous legal repercussions and significantly influence existing legal frameworks.
In conclusion, Kevin expresses concern about how the proposed legislation may affect the existing legal environment, “... this is going to open up a new industry for plaintiffs’ lawyers, and maybe that’s the way our system works.”
