There are new twists in the saga of algorithmic bias and the American Privacy Rights Act, or APRA. That's the privacy bill that would have imposed race and gender quotas on AI algorithms. I covered that effort two weeks ago in a detailed article for the Volokh Conspiracy.
A lot has happened since then. Most importantly, publicity around its quota provisions forced the drafters of APRA into retreat. A new discussion draft was released, and it dropped much of the quota-driving language. Then, a day later, a House commerce subcommittee held a markup on the new draft. It was actually more of a nonmarkup markup; member after member insisted that the new draft needed further changes and then withdrew their amendments pending further discussions. With that ambiguous endorsement, the subcommittee sent APRA to the full committee.
Still, it is good news that APRA now omits the original disparate impact and quota provisions. No explanation was offered for the change, but it seems clear that few in Congress want to be seen forcing quotas into algorithmic decisionmaking.
