An act to amend the labor law, in relation to establishing criteria for the use of automated employment decision tools

• Authority: New York
• Parent authority: State governments
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. state and local documents
• Most recent activity: Proposed
• Most recent activity date: 2024-01-08

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
• Unequal performance across groups

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Loss of human agency and autonomy
• Increased inequality and decline in employment
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 3-4 subdomains, with strong focus on unfair discrimination (1.1), unequal performance across groups (1.3), and governance failure (6.5). Coverage is concentrated in discrimination and toxicity, and socioeconomic domains, specifically addressing employment discrimination risks from automated decision tools.

Sector coverage

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Agriculture, Mining, Construction & Manufacturing
• Trade, Transportation & Utilities
• Information
• Finance & Insurance
• Real Estate, Rental & Leasing
• Professional & Technical Services
• Scientific Research & Development Services
• Management, Administrative & Support Services
• Educational Services
• Health Care & Social Assistance
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
• Accommodation, Food & Other Services
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)
• National Security

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This regulation applies broadly across all economic sectors as it governs any employer in New York State that uses automated employment decision tools for hiring. The law is sector-agnostic, applying to employers regardless of their industry, though it would have particular relevance for sectors with high-volume hiring processes.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding legislative act from the New York State legislature with mandatory compliance requirements, enforcement mechanisms through the Attorney General and Commissioner, and unlawful designation for non-compliance.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: New York State Legislature (Senate and Assembly)
• Summary: The document is a legislative act proposed by the New York State Legislature, as indicated by the formal legislative language and structure.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Deployer
• Entities: Employers in New York State using automated employment decision tools
• Summary: The act explicitly targets employers who implement or use automated employment decision tools for screening employment candidates within New York State.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Attorney General of New York; Commissioner of Labor (Department of Labor)
• Summary: The document explicitly designates both the Attorney General and the Commissioner as enforcement authorities with investigation and legal action powers.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Department of Labor
• Summary: The Department of Labor is designated to receive annual summaries of disparate impact analyses from employers, establishing a monitoring and oversight role.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily focuses on the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages of the AI lifecycle, requiring annual disparate impact assessments and ongoing monitoring of automated employment decision tools. It also implicitly covers Verify and Validate through mandatory testing requirements before deployment.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Models
• AI Systems
• Predictive AI
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly defines and covers automated employment decision tools, which include AI and machine learning systems. It specifically mentions neural networks, decision trees, random forests, and other AI/ML algorithms. The document focuses on task-specific AI for employment screening but does not mention frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, generative AI, or compute thresholds.