As the US federal government struggles to meaningfully regulate AI--or even function--New York City is stepping into the governance gap. The city introduced an AI Action Plan this week that mayor Eric Adams calls a first of its kind in the nation. The set of roughly 40 policy initiatives is designed to protect residents against harm like bias or discrimination from AI. It includes development of standards for AI purchased by city agencies and new mechanisms to gauge the risk of AI used by city departments. New York's AI regulation could soon expand still further.

Washington, DC, is the home base of the most powerful government on earth. City agencies use automation to screen housing applicants, predict criminal recidivism, identify food assistance fraud, determine if a high schooler is likely to drop out, inform sentencing decisions for young people, and many other things. That snapshot of semiautomated urban life comes from a new report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). The nonprofit spent 14 months investigating the city's use of algorithms and found they were used across 20 agencies, with more than a third deployed in policing or criminal justice. For many systems, city agencies would not provide full details of how their technology worked or was used.

Portland City Council members voted unanimously on Wednesday to prohibit the public – and, in some cases, private – use of facial recognition technology, making it the most stringent ban of this kind nationwide, according to multiple reports. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty introduced the bans, which immediately took effect for city agencies, and will be effective on Jan. 1 for private businesses, The Oregonian and Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. The ordinances bar the use of facial recognition technology by city agencies and on public property within the city, but also prohibit its use "by private entities in places of public accommodation," according to city agency Smart City PDX. Facial recognition technology violates the public's personal privacy and has "a demonstrated gender and racial bias," Wheeler said, according to OPB.com. "Technology exists to make our lives easier, not for public and private entities to use as a weapon against the very citizens they serve and accommodate," the Democratic mayor reportedly said.

Boston would become the largest U.S. city east of San Francisco to ban the use of facial-recognition technology by any city agency if a local law proposed by two city councilors is adopted. "It would mean that the Boston city government, including Boston police and any other department, could not use any state surveillance system," City Councilor-at-Large Michelle Wu said at a press briefing before a hearing that drew more than 100 people to weigh in on the proposal. "To be clear, Boston police already … have said that they do not use it today." The ban would prevent any city agency from using face surveillance software and ensure that people are not subject to unregulated, mass surveillance in public spaces, such as at protests like the ones that have roiled Boston and other cities since last month's killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer. The technology some police departments use when looking for suspects furthers racial inequity by identifying people of color at a higher rate, City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo said.

New York City is hiring. The city earlier this month unveiled a description of its new Algorithms Management Policy Officer role. But some worry the creation of a procedural position forced to maneuver within an arguably flawed bureaucratic structure only perpetuates the city's imperfect approach to developing policy for government AI use. "It appears this role will simply provide a rubber stamp to current and future use of [Automated Decision Systems] without evaluating or even attempting to address known concerns with ADS currently used by city agencies," Rashida Richardson, director of policy research at the AI Now Institute at NYU and a critic of the city's task force, told RedTail. "This role is unique in urban governance and is intended to help provide protocols and information about the systems and tools City agencies use to make decisions," the city said in a statement.

More and more entities are deploying machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate tasks previously performed by humans. Such efforts carry with them real benefits, such as the enhancement of operational efficiency and the reduction of costs, but they also raise a number of concerns regarding their potential impacts on human society, particularly as computer algorithms are increasingly used to determine important outcomes like individuals' treatment within the criminal justice system. This mixture of benefits and concerns is starting to attract the interest of regulators. Efforts in the European Union, Canada, and the United States have initiated an ongoing discussion around how to regulate "automated decision-making" and what principles should guide it. And while not all of these regulatory efforts will directly implicate private companies, they may nonetheless provide insight for companies seeking to build consumer trust in their artificial intelligence systems or better prepare themselves for the overall direction that regulation is taking.

In this Oct. 31, 2018, file photo, a man, who declined to be identified, has his face painted to represent efforts to defeat facial recognition during a protest at Amazon headquarters over the company's facial recognition system, "Rekognition," in Seattle. San Francisco is on track to become the first U.S. city to ban the use of facial recognition by police and other city agencies. SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco is on track to become the first U.S. city to ban the use of facial recognition by police and other city agencies, reflecting a growing backlash against a technology that's creeping into airports, motor vehicle departments, stores, stadiums and home security cameras. Government agencies around the U.S. have used the technology for more than a decade to scan databases for suspects and prevent identity fraud. But recent advances in artificial intelligence have created more sophisticated computer vision tools, making it easier for police to pinpoint a missing child or protester in a moving crowd or for retailers to analyze a shopper's facial expressions as they peruse store shelves.

Cities are noisy places, and a team of scientists believe that sensors, artificial intelligence, and some generous volunteers can help solve the problem. Sounds of New York City (SONYC) is asking citizen scientists to listen to 10-second sound clips collected by sensors around the city and identify what they hear. Users are presented with a spectrogram visualization of the audio and a menu of options ("small-sounding engine," "dog barking," "ice cream truck") and have to select all the options that apply. This information will then be fed to an algorithm that will learn to better identify the sources of noise on its own. Hopefully, all this will lead to a better understanding of noise pollution and better tools for fighting it.

Facial recognition technology is everywhere you look -- from unlocking phones to shaming jaywalkers. But should corporations have the power to use it on you without consent? That's the question the city of San Francisco is tackling right now. A member of the city's Board of Supervisors proposed a ban on facial recognition technology for city agencies on Tuesday, Wired reports -- potentially forcing tech companies to justify the use of surveillance tools. San Francisco city board member Aaron Peskin is calling for an approval process for any new surveillance technology purchases by city agencies such as license plate readers, CCTV, and gun-detection systems. "I have yet to be persuaded that there is any beneficial use of this technology that outweighs the potential for government actors to use it for coercive and oppressive ends," Peskin told Wired.

If a local tech industry critic has his way, San Francisco could become the first US city to ban its agencies from using facial recognition technology. Aaron Peskin, a member of the city's Board of Supervisors, proposed the ban Tuesday as part of a suite of rules to enhance surveillance oversight. In addition to the ban on facial recognition technology, the ordinance would require city agencies to gain the board's approval before buying new surveillance technology, putting the burden on city agencies to publicly explain why they want the tools as well as the potential harms. It would also require an audit of any existing surveillance tech--things like gunshot-detection systems, surveillance cameras, or automatic license plate readers--in use by the city; officials would have to report annually on how the technology was used, community complaints, and with whom they share the data. Those rules would follow similar ordinances passed in nearby Oakland and Santa Clara County.