While recently speaking at a conference hosted by Vanderbilt University, Jen Easterly, the Director of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) urged the development of regulations around the use of artificial intelligence (AI). According to reporting by Reuters, Easterly recalled the lessons learned from the lack of security in the design of the Internet and software, and the relationship between social media platforms and mental health issues. According to Reuters, Easterly commented that “the failure to identify risks before past technologies were widely deployed has left policy-makers and cyber defenders scrambling to address the worst threats from those developments.”

She further stated, “AI will be the most powerful capability of our time, and I believe it will also be the most powerful weapon of our time, and we cannot afford to make the same mistakes with this epoch-defining technology that we’ve made with the Internet and with software and with social media.”

She emphasized that China has already “established guardrails to ensure that AI represents Chinese values, and the U.S. should do the same” which provides the U.S. “an opportunity to govern AI in a way that embeds democratic values in its use and its deployment.”

There are so many lessons to be learned from the past few decades of the development of different technologies, and how the use of innovative technology has unintentional consequences. We need to learn from those lessons and not repeat them.

Photo of Linn Foster Freedman Linn Foster Freedman

Linn Freedman practices in data privacy and security law, cybersecurity, and complex litigation. She is a member of the Business Litigation Group and the Financial Services Cyber-Compliance Team, and chairs the firm’s Data Privacy and Security and Artificial Intelligence Teams. Linn focuses her…

Linn Freedman practices in data privacy and security law, cybersecurity, and complex litigation. She is a member of the Business Litigation Group and the Financial Services Cyber-Compliance Team, and chairs the firm’s Data Privacy and Security and Artificial Intelligence Teams. Linn focuses her practice on compliance with all state and federal privacy and security laws and regulations. She counsels a range of public and private clients from industries such as construction, education, health care, insurance, manufacturing, real estate, utilities and critical infrastructure, marine and charitable organizations, on state and federal data privacy and security investigations, as well as emergency data breach response and mitigation. Linn is an Adjunct Professor of the Practice of Cybersecurity at Brown University and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law.  Prior to joining the firm, Linn served as assistant attorney general and deputy chief of the Civil Division of the Attorney General’s Office for the State of Rhode Island. She earned her J.D. from Loyola University School of Law and her B.A., with honors, in American Studies from Newcomb College of Tulane University. She is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Read her full rc.com bio here.