The Colorado Capitol in January 2025 Even before Colorado has established regulations for artificial-intelligence development, legislators are advancing a proposal to give special whistleblower protection to sector workers — a plan raising significant concerns for business groups and Gov. Jared Polis.
It’s not the broad idea of safeguarding whistleblowers that bothers opponents of House Bill 1212 so much as several provisions in the bill and the idea that Colorado would be alone in offering such great protections to workers who report major risks to state authorities. A key official from the Democratic governor’s administration said that Polis worries this will incentivize companies to move AI development and highly paid workers outside of Colorado to states where they face lower levels of regulation.
Still, HB 1212, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Manny Rutinel of Commerce City and GOP Rep. Matt Soper of Delta, passed it first legislative test Tuesday, advancing out of the House Judiciary Committee on a 7-3 vote that garnered bipartisan support and opposition. Its backers promised to continue negotiating changes but said the threat of public harm from poorly developed AI systems is great enough that workers willing to go over the heads of their bosses to report problems must know the state will come to their defense.
“We certainly want to be able to encourage workers in the artificial-intelligence space that that when they see vulnerabilities to our public safety or national security or financial systems to potential fraud and abuse that they say something to their managers — and that they are able to address those vulnerabilities and those weaknesses before they impact all of us in society,” Soper said. Colorado state Rep. Matt Soper speaks in a House committee hearing in April 2024. How the new bill fits into artificial intelligence conversation
AI development is advancing rapidly, as users employ such programs to write speeches and papers, to weed out job applicants and even to understand complex medical needs. Polis last year signed the nation’s most comprehensive AI regulatory bill , aimed at barring discrimination by these programs, but he immediately put together a task force to examine […]
Artificial intelligence workers may get special protections in Colorado
