Last month, a Texas judge laid out his reasoning for banning court filings generated by ChatGPT or other artificial intelligence (AI) for legal briefs. While acknowledging that AI has a place in the legal profession, its tendency to fabricate standard legal documents that are filled with hallucinations, bias, and beliefs, which do not faithfully uphold the law.
To ensure AI serves humanity—and not the other way around—Texas must take the lead in developing responsible, ethical guardrails for this highly consequential technology.
In May, a Texas A&M professor blocked the graduation of several seniors by falsely claiming they had all used ChatGPT to write their final assignments. His attempt to use the AI software as a detection tool—not designed for this purpose—almost cost the students their degrees.
The recent rise of AI through OpenAI’s ChatGPT has sparked a new push for technological innovation and adoption, setting off an arms race for increasingly advanced AI systems. As AI continues to evolve and become incorporated into society broadly, it holds the potential to disrupt our work, daily lives, and more—in good and bad ways.
For starters, AI refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines, enabling them to perform tasks that typically require human cognition. Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, employs advanced machine learning techniques to generate content often indistinguishable from human-created content. From text-to-image models to automatically completing code, generative AI can be applied across diverse domains from art, entertainment, and music to health care, transportation, and medicine.
Tech giants and research institutions are engaged in intense competition to develop advanced AI systems. While this competition drives rapid technological improvements, it also raises concerns. The concentration of AI research within a few powerful corporations may exacerbate global power imbalances, granting outsized influence over societies and economies. The incessant race for superior AI capabilities may neglect safety checks, ethical considerations, and comprehensive impact assessments, leading to a race to the bottom.
The exponential growth of AI capabilities necessitates a comprehensive understanding of and approach to its future. Privacy and security considerations must also be at the forefront of AI development. The vast amounts of data required to train AI systems raise concerns about data breaches, unauthorized access, and intellectual property rights. We must actively engage in dialogue and cooperation across academia, industry, and government to establish ethical frameworks, guidelines, and regulations that ensure the responsible development and deployment of AI. This collaborative effort should prioritize transparency, fairness, and accountability, mitigating potential biases and unintended consequences that offend human dignity.
Furthermore, AI’s ability to simulate human intelligence raises fundamental questions about the relationship between technology and humanity. As AI systems grow increasingly sophisticated, concerns regarding job displacement, ethical dilemmas, and social inequality demand careful consideration regarding AI’s responsible development, deployment, and regulation. On the flip side, embracing the potential of human-AI collaboration can enhance decision-making processes, augment creativity, and advance new fields.
Due to the leadership of Rep. Giovanni Capriglione and Sen. Tan Parker, Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed HB 2060 into law, establishing an advisory council to study the application of AI in state government and develop a digital code of ethics. This is a crucial first step, and one that TPPF stands ready to support as we engage in research, stakeholder meetings, and broader efforts to study AI, its myriad applications, and how policy can be used as a tool to ensure this technology serves humanity—not the other way around.
The incidents highlighted at the outset are just some of the many examples of how significant the potential consequences of misapplying AI are, and these trends will continue if Texas does not establish proper guardrails for AI.
So let’s step up, Texas, and proactively shape this change—leveraging collaborative innovation, careful regulation, and an open mind—to ensure AI serves as a catalyst for enhanced human potential and shared prosperity. The future of AI is in our hands. Let’s mold it for the better.