AI and Transportation Safety: A Dangerous Combination?

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has begun using artificial intelligence to draft regulations regarding the safety of airplanes, automobiles, and infrastructure such as pipelines. This initiative, revealed by a ProPublica investigation, has raised serious concerns.

Risks and Benefits of Regulatory Automation

The use of AI for drafting rules presents inherent risks. AI systems, while powerful, can make mistakes and generate false information. If these errors are not detected, they could lead to flawed laws, resulting in lawsuits, accidents, and even deaths in the transportation sector. However, the DOT aims to speed up the regulatory process, reducing drafting times from weeks or months to less than 30 days, thanks to tools like Google Gemini.

Data Sovereignty and Future Implications

The adoption of AI systems for such delicate tasks raises questions about data sovereignty and liability in case of errors. For those evaluating on-premise deployments, there are trade-offs to consider carefully. AI-RADAR offers analytical frameworks on /llm-onpremise to evaluate these aspects.