ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10)– Artificial intelligence has been the topic of discussion in Albany. A hearing was held by lawmakers on Thursday discussing its impact on the workforce.

Christopher Ford, a PEF executive board member, was the first speaker of the legislative hearing. He spoke of the need for a state AI taskforce.

“What are things we want to make sure that with the speed that AI is entering the workforce and being used to make decisions that there is accountability to monitor that,” said Ford. “In order to do that, you need to bring together different stakeholders from academics the unions the employers in that information needs to be discussed.”

Legislation for a task force has already passed in both the state Senate and Assembly, but has yet to be signed by the governor.

One industry being impacted by AI is the media industry, whether that be journalism or entertainment.

“People are really hard at detecting fake stories, even when they are purely text based,” explained Rebecca Damon, Executive Director, New York Local, Labor Policy and International Affairs. “Faked voices, faked likenesses exacerbate this phenomenon, because of the persuasive power of audio and video.”

To create more transparency, Assemblymember Pat Fahy is sponsoring a new bill that would make it a requirement for content generated by AI to be clearly marked as such.

“As much as we want to see artificial intelligence or AI used and has many positive aspects, we also need to know when generative AI or generative artificial intelligence, is used in our newspapers, our periodicals and things of that nature.

Assemblymember Fahy said this will help prevent the spread of disinformation.