EPA has said it may use artificial intelligence to help it read and respond to public comments for “certain rulemakings and other agency actions.”
That could save the agency time as it rushes to finish an ambitious slate of deregulatory actions this fall that includes repealing the greenhouse gas endangerment finding and climate rules for vehicles and power plants.
But it also threatens to make its actions legally vulnerable, depending on how EPA uses AI and what it discloses about those efforts, according to legal experts who track the technology.
“Governments have sometimes found themselves in controversies because they haven’t really taken the kind of care that they should with their digital innovations,” said Cary Coglianese, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “The closer we’re getting to major policy decisions, and the more that the AI is doing the deciding — or the informing, even — of the decisions, then, really, that calls for transparency and public input.”
