Maryland Governor Wes Moore has announced a new AI Framework for the state, establishing some core principles he says will protect Marylanders from “new and emerging threats to their rights and safety.” This compliance alert looks at these principles and discusses what organizations operating in the state can expect with regard to their use of AI.
Summary
In a September 22 press release, Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced the state’s new AI Framework, outlining its approach to the responsible development, deployment, and regulation of artificial intelligence. The framework highlights three guiding principles—“protecting our people”, “centering our workers”, and “keeping our kids safe,” and establishes the current state administration’s intention to address threats to individual rights and safety, infrastructure, democracy, and the economy. It also pledges that workers and unions will have a say in how AI affects them, while promising AI training and transition support.
The Moore-Miller administration is said to be taking action to:
- Regulate frontier AI companies
- Recognize a person’s likeness as a property right
- Ensure state regulators are helping residents understand their civil rights when they are affected by AI-driven decisions in financial, housing, and labor contexts
- Clarify how existing discrimination laws apply when AI is involved
- Engage with unions concerning AI’s impact on workers
- Work with legislature and key stakeholders to ensure the regulation of “the most concerning aspects of AI for workers,” such as social scoring, tracking to undermine worker organizing, and systemic bias
Critiquing the absence of federal guardrails, the press release characterises the U.S. government as “sitting on their hands,” remarking, “As Washington stalls, Maryland is choosing to act, ensuring that this technology serves Marylanders rather than the other way around.”
Who Is Impacted and What Actions Are Required?
This announcement creates no new actions for businesses, but it does indicate a general direction of travel for the state and its stance on AI. Organizations operating in Maryland that use AI in their employment decision-making, as well as those using the technology for workplace monitoring purposes, would be wise to anticipate the creation of tighter regulations, though these are likely to take some time to materialize.
Maryland already has a number of existing laws that touch on AI use, including the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, and the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act. In addition to ensuring that current AI use complies with all existing laws, organizations should proactively maintain an inventory of AI decision-making tools so that compliance can be validated against existing and emerging requirements.
How Affirmity Can Help
Understand the potential impact and legal defensibility of artificial intelligence use in your organization: get a compliance risk assessment for AI employment selection systems and ensure your systems comply in Maryland and beyond. We also recommend:
- Workforce representation and decision analytics: Maintain proactive race and gender non-discrimination analysis and uncover potential disparate impact
- Pay equity analysis: Identify unexplained compensation gaps across gender, race, and other protected classes before they result in legal exposure
- Risk assessment services covering other federal and state targets such as DEI programs
Ensure compliance in every state you operate in: Contact our team of experts today. Find our alerts useful? Sign up here to stay informed!
About the Author
Stephen Caldwell is a Manager of Consulting Services at Affirmity. In this role, he leads and manages a team of Affirmity consultants, providing consulting and project management in workforce compliance programs. He has assisted clients in the utility, healthcare, defense, telecommunications, energy, chemical, and other industries.
Mr. Caldwell has been with Affirmity for more than sixteen years and has over 30 years of experience in human resource consulting and diversity planning.