Brewer Q&A on AI scope and state law intersection
Brewer asks whether the bill should focus on images, video, and audio rather than fundraising emails. Both witnesses agree, with Camarda emphasizing the need to clarify how the bill intersects with existing state election law on material deceptive media, and Weinberg noting enforcement challenges under state law.
And I think you're both stating in terms of the issue of...
AI, that the image, video, and audio is where we should stick and not go into the campaign fundraising letters and so on and so forth, right?
I would agree with that.
Yeah, I'd say for 12A, our principal question really to the council is how does this intersect with existing New York state law?
You know, there are the provisions that I referenced in the testimony that relate to a disclosure of material deceptive communications.
Those are pretty narrow.
I think they align with a lot of the recommendations that the CFB made in their testimony.
So if the disclosure of the communications is meant to align with...
State law, I think that will address a lot of the concerns the CFB had, but that's not clear to us from the bill, if that's the intent.
But that's what we think it should work on.
There's a larger question of enforcement related to that law, state law, that requires candidates and campaigns to basically stamp.
This was generated by AI because enforcement of election law is a difficult matter.
It's conducted by the State Board of Elections and by the Division of Enforcement within the State Board of Elections.
And both of these bodies have been prone to delays and other issues with enforcement.
The state law actually allows candidates to petition the court to do something about it if their likelihood is part of that campaign or that ad.
But that law still applies to New York City candidates and campaigns.
So in that sense, there wouldn't be much of a difference.
Yeah, the CFB said, I thought it was an honest answer, that to do it, they'd have to have a vendor and they'd have to have expertise and they'd have to hire people who are paid more, who are expertise in this area.
So I thought they were honest about what's involved, if they're really going to do the...
Investigation and keep people accountable.
It's not as easy as one might think.
That's right.
You know, I sometimes think about this as similar to the post-employment restrictions.
It's difficult, almost impossible for the regulating agency to find all cases where someone violated a post-employment restriction because they're not monitoring the actions of thousands and thousands of...
So...
It's based on reporting of violations.
And in that case, that would probably look the same.
Okay.
Thank you both very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.