By Addy Baird | Salt Lake Tribune | Photo by Trent Nelson | Salt Lake Tribune

A new bill would limit the use of artificial intelligence for Utah law enforcement officials, revealing a rift between some departments in the state on the use of the technology.

The legislation, SB180, introduced by Sen. Stephanie Pitcher, D-Salt Lake, would require that a human review any AI-generated police reports, and that any law enforcement agency using generative AI include a disclosure in the report. “We’re seeing more of a reliance on artificial intelligence,” Pitcher said in a Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee hearing last week where she presented the bill.

Pitcher, an attorney and former prosecutor, told the committee she started thinking about the bill last summer and, at the time, was not aware of any departments in the state using the technology but learned in the months since that a number of agencies in the state are using an AI program known as Axon Draft One, which uses body camera footage to generate police reports.

“At the time, I felt like it was something that it’s better for us to get ahead of instead of playing catch up on,” she said in an interview. “Using AI to generate police reports — or just in the investigation process — presents a number of really interesting issues, I think, where some guardrails are appropriate.”

Several police departments in Utah confirmed to The Salt Lake Tribune that they use or have tested the use of generative AI technology for developing reports.

Read more at sltrib.com.

This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.