NYC Gazette

Speaker Carl Heastie and Assembly Science and Technology Committee Chair Steve Otis announced the passage of the Legislative Oversight of Automated Decision-making in Government (LOADinG) Act. The legislation aims to provide assessment, transparency, and oversight of automated decision-making systems used by state agencies for high-stakes decisions.

"As the world rapidly moves around us, we must ensure our state agencies have the tools they need to keep up with the shifting technological landscape," said Speaker Heastie. "This bill allows us to observe how automated decision-making systems would better the services at state agencies while providing the necessary framework for proper oversight of these programs."

"Automated decision-making and artificial intelligence provide great tools for improving services. These tools must be accompanied by guardrails, transparency, and oversight to make sure that management of these systems remains controlled by humans and that they do not provide faulty, biased or discriminatory outcomes," said Assemblymember Otis. "This legislation is the first in the nation to establish a statutory framework to provide state agencies and the public with a process for ongoing assessment of the evolving use of automated decision-making."

The LOADinG Act mandates state agencies to assess all automated decision-making systems used for decisions affecting individual receipt of public benefits, rights, civil liberties, safety, welfare, or statutory and constitutional rights. It also requires meaningful human review and regular impact assessments.

Additionally, this bill provides a process for redacting parts of the assessment if there are public safety and privacy concerns before it is posted on an agency’s website. If any discriminatory or biased outcomes are identified in the assessment report, state agencies are required to cease using the automated system.

The legislation has also passed in the Senate.

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