Utah requires generative artificial intelligence to say so when asked and opens a learning laboratory for testing

2024-03-13US Policy

Artificial Intelligence Amendments, S.B. 149, 2024 General Session (Utah), enacting the Artificial Intelligence Policy Act, Utah Code Title 13, Chapter 70, and Utah Code Section 13-2-12, sponsored by Senator Kirk A. Cullimore and Representative Jefferson Moss, signed March 13, 2024, effective May 1, 2024

Utah's Senate Bill 149 passed both chambers without a dissenting vote, was signed on March 13, 2024, and takes effect May 1, 2024. A person who uses generative artificial intelligence to interact with a person in connection with a law administered by the Division of Consumer Protection must clearly and conspicuously disclose, "if asked or prompted by the person," that the person is interacting with generative artificial intelligence and not a human. A person providing the services of a regulated occupation must prominently disclose the interaction at the start of an oral exchange or before a written one. It is not a defense that generative artificial intelligence made the statement or undertook the act, and fines run up to $2,500 per violation. The Act creates an Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy in the Department of Commerce and a learning laboratory in which accepted participants may test artificial intelligence technology under regulatory mitigation agreements lasting up to twelve months, with one twelve-month extension. The agreements limit the number and types of users and the geography, require safeguards, and may provide cure periods and reduced civil fines. Participants report to the Office as their agreements require and must report consumer harm immediately. The chapter creating the Office and the laboratory is repealed on May 1, 2025.

What it changesFor patent purposes the learning laboratory is the provision that matters. A participant tests its technology with real users under a written agreement with a state office, and the Act contains no provision keeping a participant's application, reports or test results confidential. Testing a model-based product with the public in that setting is the kind of use courts treat as public unless it is controlled and kept confidential, so the patent application on the feature being tested should be on file before the application to the Office goes in, and the participation agreement should be negotiated to protect technical information. The disclosure duty raises a smaller point. Every conversational product offered to Utah consumers needs a reliable way to recognize the question and answer it truthfully, and where an engineering team builds that capability in a new way rather than with a fixed instruction, the work belongs in an invention disclosure.