What the White House's Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights Means for FIs

Source: American Banker

The White House has published an AI Bill of Rights that instructs banks and other companies on the kinds of consumer protections they need to build into their artificial intelligence-based programs.

The bill of rights is not law and it's not enforceable, but it does reveal how the Biden administration wants consumer rights to be protected as companies like FIs use AI.

"You can think of it as a preamble to future regulatory action," said Jacob Metcalf, program director of AI on the Ground for the nonprofit research group Data and Society. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which produced the document, doesn't write laws, but it does set strategic priorities that other government agencies will follow, he explained.  

FIs' and fintechs' use of AI has been called into question many times by regulators and consumer advocates, especially their use of AI in lending. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra warned recently that the reliance on artificial intelligence in loan decisions could lead to illegal discrimination. FIs' use of AI in facial recognition has also been singled  out, and their use of AI in hiring has been questioned. This is the tip of the iceberg: FIs and fintechs use AI in many other areas including fraud detection, cybersecurity and virtual assistants.