There has been much scrutiny of artificial intelligence tools this year. From NIST to the FTC to the EU Parliament, many have recommendations and requirements for companies that want to use AI tools. Key concerns including being transparent about the use of the tools, ensuring accuracy, and not discriminating against individuals when using AI technologies, and not using the technologies in situations where it may not give reliable results (i.e., for things for which the was not designed). Additional requirements for use of these tools exist under GDPR as well.

Legal counsel may feel uncomfortable with business teams who are moving forward in deploying AI tools. It’s not likely, however, that lawyers will be able to slow down the inevitable and widespread use of AI. We anticipate more developments in this area into 2021.

Putting It Into Practice: Companies can use “privacy by design” principles to help them get a handle on business team’s AI efforts. Taking time to fully understand the ways in which the AI tool will be used (both immediately in any future phases of a project) can be critical to ensuring that regulator concerns and legal requirements are addressed.