Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2023

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. federal laws
• Most recent activity: Defunct
• Most recent activity date: 2025-01-03

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
• Compromise of privacy
• Lack of capability or robustness
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

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

• AI system security vulnerabilities
• Loss of human agency and autonomy

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 8-10 subdomains, with strong focus on unfair discrimination (1.1, 1.3), privacy compromise (2.1), AI system security (2.2), lack of transparency (7.4), and lack of robustness (7.3). Coverage is concentrated in discrimination/toxicity, privacy/security, and AI system safety domains, with minimal coverage of malicious actors, misinformation, or socioeconomic risks.

Sector coverage

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

• Trade, Transportation & Utilities
• Information
• Finance & Insurance
• Real Estate, Rental & Leasing
• Management, Administrative & Support Services
• Educational Services
• Health Care & Social Assistance
• Accommodation, Food & Other Services

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document governs AI use across multiple sectors through its definition of 'critical decisions' which explicitly covers education, employment, utilities, family planning, financial services, healthcare, housing, and legal services. The regulation applies horizontally across these sectors wherever automated decision systems are deployed for critical decisions affecting consumers.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding legislative act proposed by the United States Congress that establishes mandatory requirements for covered entities to perform impact assessments of automated decision systems, with explicit enforcement mechanisms through the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, including penalties for non-compliance.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: United States Congress; Senator Ron Wyden; Senator Cory Booker; Senator Martin Heinrich; Senator Gary Peters; Senator Bob Casey; Senator Ben Ray Luján; Senator Tammy Baldwin; Senator Jeff Merkley; Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; Senator Brian Schatz; Senator Mazie Hirono; Senator Elizabeth Warren
• Summary: The document is a bill introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Wyden and co-sponsored by multiple senators, as indicated in the header and introduction section.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Summary: The Act targets 'covered entities' which are defined as persons, partnerships, or corporations that deploy augmented critical decision processes or develop automated decision systems for such processes, meeting specific revenue or data thresholds. These entities function as both AI developers and deployers.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Federal Trade Commission; State Attorneys General
• Summary: The Federal Trade Commission is designated as the primary enforcement authority with power to promulgate regulations and enforce compliance. State attorneys general are also granted enforcement authority through parens patriae actions.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Federal Trade Commission; Bureau of Technology; National Institute of Standards and Technology; Office of Science and Technology Policy
• Summary: The FTC is responsible for monitoring through annual summary reports from covered entities and maintaining a publicly accessible repository. A new Bureau of Technology is established within the FTC to aid in monitoring technological aspects. NIST and OSTP have review roles for developing future standards.

AI Lifecycle Stages

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

• Plan and Design
• Collect and Process Data
• Build and Use Model
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document comprehensively covers all stages of the AI lifecycle, with particularly strong emphasis on Verify and Validate, Deploy, and Operate and Monitor stages. It requires impact assessments throughout development and deployment, including pre-deployment evaluation and ongoing post-deployment monitoring.

Technical Scope

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

• AI Systems

Technical Scope Summary

The document focuses on 'automated decision systems' and 'augmented critical decision processes' as its primary technical scope. It does not explicitly mention frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, generative AI, predictive AI, or compute thresholds. The scope is defined functionally around systems that make or assist in critical decisions affecting consumers.