CHARLESTON - West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is part of a coalition of 15 AGs that is asking the federal government to provide "fair and unbiased" regulation of artificial intelligence in the financial services sector.
Morrisey and the other AGs submitted a comment letter to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Secretary Janet Yellen emphasizing such a need. The letter asks the department to focus solely on risks to financial reliability and consumer protection rather than politicizing AI regulation or blocking state laws.
“This administration has a record of using its power over the financial sector to advance the Biden-Harris radical climate agenda, and this comment letter reminds the department we are watching this closely that they do not use AI-related regulations to further the administration’s environmental justice agenda,” Morrisey told The West Virginia Record. "The department should not be using AI regulation to facilitate de-banking of the Biden-Harris administration’s disfavored opponents, such as church missionaries, gun manufacturers, payday lenders and other groups engaged in lawful activities.
“It’s really simple: the Department of the Treasury is not an environmental regulator."
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, who led the coalition, agreed.
“We need to ensure that foundational AI regulation in the financial sector does not fall prey to an administration that has repeatedly abused its financial regulatory power to illegally impose activist mandates that have nothing to do with financial services,” Skrmetti wrote in the letter. “We cannot allow ideological orthodoxy to kneecap the development of AI.
"As this revolutionary technology begins to take off, the ham-fisted efforts of narrow-minded activists to shackle AI to a political agenda could permanently harm American competitiveness and deprive our citizens of extraordinary prosperity.”
In the letter, the AGs say financial services firms are deploying artificial intelligence in several areas relevant tostate law, including chatbots for consumer interactions; analyses of creditworthiness for lending, fraud, and financial crime detection; and investment management.
The coalition of attorneys general highlight the potential benefits of integrating AI into financial services operations, both for businesses and consumers. They also stress the importance of ensuring robust competition and fair treatment of consumers while also detecting and preventing fraud. They further urge the department not to create or enable barriers to entry for new innovative products that benefit consumers.
Furthermore, the attorneys general remind the Treasury Department that it is not an environmental regulator or the arbiter of American culture and it should not misuse AI regulations to further social or environmental agendas. The attorneys general also emphasize that AI regulation should not be used to facilitate the debanking of disfavored groups engaged in lawful activities, such as church missionaries or cryptocurrency entrepreneurs.
The coalition urges the department to consider the effects of its regulation on competition and avoid preempting state oversight of financial services. It says the states’ role as co-equal enforcers of consumer privacy, consumer protection, and antitrust laws should be maintained.
In addition to West Virginia, the other attorneys general joining Tennessee in the letter are from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia.