Creates the office of emerging technology and provides for its functions and duties

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Kristen Gonzalez says this is needed

In the nearly thirty years since Congress dismantled the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, a federal agency that provided policymakers with analysis of new technologies, the world has experienced an explosion of emerging technologies. From smartphones and the internet to social media and artificial intelligence, technological innovations have revolution- ized entire industries and transformed Americans' daily lives---and exposed a new host of threats to our civil liberties, privacy, and national security. If New York wants to prepare and respond to new technologies, it must understand them. This legislation would create an analog to the defunded U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, an Office of Emerging Technology, and tasks it with studying, analyzing, and reporting on the potential consequences of novel advancements. As a leader in technological development, New York state can lead the country by establishing its own equivalent to the defunded federal agen- cy: a new Office of Emerging Technology. This legislation would estab- lish such a body and its governing leadership, imbue it with the author- ity as the official state research and planning office for changes in policy, practice, and allocation of state resources around emerging technologies. The Office would be tasked with providing a comprehensive framework of recommendations for policy and standards regarding: the permissible and prohibited uses and purposes of technology; the poten- tial benefits and harms of a technology; the minimum standards for accu- racy emerging technologies must achieve to be authorized for use by the state; protections for due process, privacy, free speech, and equity; training requirements for use of technology by state personnel; possible alternatives to a technology; and areas where additional research is needed. Legislative committee chairs, state agency commissioners, and the director of the office with majority approval of the board may all initiate assessment activities by the Office, which might enter into contracts for such projects, and which must issue to the government and publicize annual reports summarizing its findings.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.