One of the Biggest Problems in Regulating AI Is Agreeing on a Definition

In 2017, spurred by advocacy from civil society groups, the New York City Council created a task force to address the city's growing use of artificial intelligence. But the task force quickly ran aground attempting to come to a consensus on the scope of "automated decision systems." In one hearing, a city agency argued that the task force's definition was so expansive that it might include simple calculations such as formulas in spreadsheets. By the end of its eighteen-month term, the task force's ambitions had narrowed from addressing how the city uses automated decision systems to simply defining the types of systems that should be subject to oversight. As policymakers around the world have attempted to create guidance and regulation for AI's use in settings ranging from school admissions and home loan approvals to military weapon targeting systems, they all face the same problem: AI is really challenging to define.