At present there are no laws in Massachusetts that explicitly regulate the use of artificial intelligence. There are some regulations in place in the form of guidance issued by government agencies.
In 2024, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office issued an advisory statement on how it interpreted existing law to apply to artificial intelligence. A large part of the statement covers advertising of AI systems: suppliers can’t misrepresent the functionality, safety, reliability or performance of such systems. Additionally, the statement notes that AI technology is covered in the case of using faked audio or video to deceive a person in a business transaction. AI systems are also required to comply with preexisting rules for safeguarding personal information used by those systems. Finally, developers, suppliers and users of AI systems may not use AI systems that discriminate against residents on the basis of a legally protected characteristic.
The Massachusetts Division of Insurance also put out a bulletin in 2024, which primarily served as a reminder that any AI systems used for making insurance decisions must comply with preexisting law. (For example not setting rates which are excessive or unfairly discriminatory). It did take the additional step of mandating that each insurance company in Massachusetts develop a written program, referred to as an AIS Program, to mitigate any adverse consumer outcomes.
The efforts made by the Attorney General’s Office and the Division of Insurance are certainly a welcome start. There are, however, many gaps here. One of the biggest is that absent mandates for companies to engage in audits of their own systems and make that information publicly available, it can be very hard to identify if a system is in compliance with some of these regulations, for instance those protecting against discrimination. Additionally, guidance issued by agencies can shift with changing administrations in the absence of explicit language in law.