DWD Secretary Amy Pechacek and state Rep. Nate Gustafson, R-Fox Crossing, said AI has the potential to improve the jobs market for Wisconsinites.
Pechacek said at a recent WisPolitics luncheon in Madison that she thought that AI, like previous important technologies, could reduce “the dull, the dirty, and the dangerous” jobs and “augment” human workers. She was chair of Gov. Tony Evers’ Task Force on Workforce and Artificial Intelligence.
“We know then what [new technology] does often create is higher paying, better, more fulfilling jobs for the actual humans to do,” Pechacek said.
Gustafson, who led Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, said AI could help ease the negative effects of Wisconsin’s aging population, retiring Baby Boomers, and declining birth rate.
“My generation’s not having enough children. We need to find a way to supplement that as fast as we basically can,” the 29-year-old said.
Pechacek and Gustafson spoke alongside Kaushal Chari, dean at UW-Milwaukee‘s Lubar College of Business, and Nick Myers, CEO and co-founder of RedFox AI.
In February of this year, Wisconsin lawmakers passed bills to require the disclosure of AI use in creating political ads, outlaw the use of AI to create child porn, and begin an evaluation on AI use by state agencies to improve those agencies’ efficiency and functioning.
Gustafson said he was calling on Vos, R-Rochester, to create a standing committee on emerging technologies during the coming legislative session to address ongoing and new issues that arise around AI.
“[AI governance] is going to be a continuing conversation. So having a platform where we can continue that conversation and have members, especially in the Legislature, involved, is going to be the key here,” Gustafson said.
Evers’ task force, in an Advisory Action Plan released in July, has proposed similar entities called the Office of Data and Privacy and the Interagency Technology Governance Work Group, meant to lead ongoing and state government-wide efforts on AI and data.
Myers said he was “insanely pro-regulation” on AI and that regulators should take lessons from how social media had been handled by the government.
“We saw what happens when nefarious actors enter social media and cause problems, right? We cannot let that happen with this technology. This technology is so beyond life changing,” Myers said.
Chari, also calling for regulation, highlighting issues including fraud and misinformation, algorithmic bias, children’s exposure to the technology, and data privacy. He also noted the tendency for some AI systems to “hallucinate” or produce inaccurate outputs.
“The AI systems are still hallucinating… and therefore we should not be deploying them in critical applications, you know, healthcare, transportation, etc,” Chari said. “I think there’s a role of the government there to do something about regulating where AI can be used and where it cannot be used.”
Gustafson said he thought regulations around AI should not stifle innovation, and could be balanced with public-private partnerships and tech companies self-governing to an extent.
“I think before we put the heavy hand of government regulation over them, we’re going to continue to let them innovate, as we see them act in good faith to put their own guardrails on,” Gustafson said.
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