As the public and private sectors continue to struggle with harnessing the opportunities and risks associated with AI, New York City tackled a discrete area of AI-related concern – employment and recruiting – with the implementation of Local Law 144 and its accompanying regulations. Local Law 144 went into effect this summer and imposes restrictions on the use of automated employment decision tools (“AEDT”). The use of AEDT is prohibited by employers and employment agencies unless (1) the tool has undergone a bias audit in the past year, (2) information about the bias audit is made publicly available, and (3) notices have been provided to employees or job candidates.1 The NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), which enforces the law, issued Final Rules in support of the AEDT law in April 2023, and notable changes include an expanded scope of the definitions of “machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics, or artificial intelligence”.
