Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Berry]: We're live.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Okay. Good morning, everybody. This is the Senate Education Committee on the morning of May 4. We're having a kind of a special Monday Zoom meeting in order to just keep things moving as we approach the end of the session. We're taking up today h six fifty, an act relating to educational technology products, and we're just trying to get in some witness testimony. We've had we have the bills that came over from the house. We're working on a revised version. I think it's draft 1.1. And so we are because there's a role for the attorney general's office, we're starting this morning with, Todd Delos, director of policy and legislative affairs in the attorney general's office. So mister Delos, you are on.

[Todd Delos]: Thank you, mister chair. Todd Delos, from the attorney general's office, assistant attorney general. Thanks for having me in today. Nice to see you all in tiny little boxes in my dining room. We testified in the house on 06:15. It looks like quite a bit of changes have taken place and so happy to sort of provide the high level testimony we did at the house, which is essentially that, you know, we support this kind of legislation. This is some of the most important set of consumers to protect the youth as this as the senate did and the legislature overall did, and I know members of this committee specifically put together some really powerful legislation last year, the kids code, age appropriate design code law, really focused kind of in a similar space on how youth are interacting with with technology and also ensuring that youth data is protected. And we see this bill as another step and a very positive step in that direction. As a parent myself, I see how much my children have interacted with educational technology, how much they continue to interact with educational technology and the real importance of understanding the breadth of educational technology that is happening in schools and really helping to understand the field. I, as I look at six fifty, certainly as it passed the house and as it currently sits in draft 1.2, it looks again like an attempt to really understand the field before moving into regulation more heavily, which I think is important. There are some prohibitions, obviously, that already exist around student data. At law in this, as I read it, appears to be further examining those ed tech products, seeking that registration, which I think is is important to understand the field, and then moving potentially further down the line towards real regulation. So across the board and at a high level, we support the legislation. We think it's a a positive step. As I understand and as I think chair you just indicated there's interest in having us opine on section one and I believe it's the new language in section what is on page beginning on page three of draft 2.1 which is a new subsection to section 2444A subsection C which is on enforcement. In looking at the as passed version from the house it appeared that there wasn't really an enforcement provision there, but was a study group that would look at the registrations and then report non registered entities back to the attorney general's office. Appears This to have the AG just have blanket enforcement authority with a little caveat on how that enforcement authority is carried out. So happy to talk about comparing and contrasting those two approaches from our perspective. I will say that just at the outset, generally speaking, that notice requirement that currently sits in subsection three or subdivision 3A, which would require the AG to give sixty days notice before initiating a civil action. I'm not aware of that kind of limitation placed on our enforcement. I will say as a practical matter that is how we operate especially with this kind of registration requirement. In other spaces, I'm thinking of certain registration requirements for paid fundraisers. Those paid fundraisers have to register with our office as well. Those are folks who raise money for nonprofits, sometimes for profit themselves. They're outside entities, not not just the development arm of a nonprofit. Those organizations have to register with the AG's office on an annual basis, and they also have to provide a notice when they begin a fundraising campaign. When we enforce in that space, very rarely, unless it's a repeat offender, would we just go straight into a civil action, we almost always provide notice sort of as a as a matter of, to use a more general term, prosecutorial discretion. But none of that is mandated by law. And I would just caution the committee about adding that kind of restriction. We can imagine scenarios where there's willful misstatements, intentional misconduct, and things like that, and giving giving entities an opportunity to avoid potential liability, I think is a is a it can be a little risky. And so

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Just to make sure we're we're following you Yeah. As I am, you're talking, I think, this moment specifically about three a and three b Correct. On page four. Right?

[Todd Delos]: Yeah. Sorry. Thank you for orienting.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. I

[Todd Delos]: I've spent a couple hours this morning looking at this legislation. I'm guessing you all probably jumping back in on a Monday morning. So my apologies for not better orienting you on it. You, of course, have looked at it for a longer span of time than I have.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: That's okay.

[Todd Delos]: So yes, senator, that's that's precisely I just wanna flag that that kind of period of time preventing the AG from bringing in enforcement. I don't believe we have that elsewhere in law, but I may be incorrect. But as a practical matter, as matter of practice, it is generally our practice to send out a letter that says, hey, it looks like you haven't registered, especially here where, the registration, I think, and of course the committee can correct me on this, is intended to gather information about the current marketplace. How these products are being used in the current marketplace in anticipation of further regulation down the line. So it's not really a place that I think we would spend a lot of time litigating. But again, I wouldn't want to foreclose it if we saw kind of egregious behavior in this space. And I think we want to be really thoughtful about when we circumscribe the ability of the attorney general's office to engage in in consumer protection action. Beyond that, I don't have Mister chair?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So, I mean, I'll just say that was that was my intent. This is a very subjective area. We heard from the original sponsor that no other state has taken this step to try and have a registry. Rhode Island is looking at it too, but I just think it's better to spell out in plain language that we're not going to go after anybody for registering or not registering while we figure out what we're exactly asking for. We're now silent on whether or not the ed tech company would need to register with or without a contract because that felt hard to sort of plan for in advance, but given that we could have ed tech not knowing if we mean that they are simply operating as a business in the state when they don't have a district contract, that's going to take a lot of time to work out. And I think maybe the AG's office has heard me say this, but I have concerns with the registry altogether and what it will accomplish besides helping us understand the field, so I don't want there to be a lot of civil actions until we figure that out. I don't want people to feel scared away from registering, so it was very conscious and I think it needs to stay and that's from my lens doing consumer protection in the mornings as well. I think it's, we're going to lose information if people worry about, you know, if I do something, then, you know, I'm on their radar, and I'd rather they feel comfortable registering with us in the first place if our goal is to try and understand the field.

[Todd Delos]: Totally understood, senator. And I think, I might recommend or suggest another option, which is I I think the as passed version by the house had no enforcement mechanism. And if the goal is really to gather the data, I think our our recommendation there would be to just remove the provisions around enforcement, and then that could be something for study to consider. If the thought is that any enforcement is gonna dampen registration, that would seem to be an appropriate response. If the concern is if there's no penalty, then no one's gonna register. I I would recommend just an enforcement mechanism like other consumer protection measures. Will just say

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: already there. It there was already an underlying CPA enforcement. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: In the

[Todd Delos]: in the as passed version?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yes. Unless Rick wants to correct me. That was the problem, is that the enforcement could be very uneven and subjective unless we spelled out that there was sixty days to be notified before further action.

[Rick Segal]: So I can chime in, mister chair, if you'd Yes. Yes. Good morning. Rick Segal with the Office of Legislative Council. So the ask passed by the house, had a different registration process that did not have any enforcement whatsoever. There was discussion in the senate to add some type of either penalty or enforcement. And right now, the bill contains just the Consumer Protection Act connection with AG sixty day cure period enforcement. So that's the history so far of the bill.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: So I think just to be clear, like, your your the AG's position is either take it out entirely at this point or delete a and a and b under three.

[Todd Delos]: Correct. Wanna Sure. I I mean, we could also suggest in other spaces, there's just an administrative penalty, right, as opposed to full AG enforcement, which I totally appreciate Senator Ram Hinsdale's point. Right? Nobody wants to register for the same or miss something and then end up with a potential of a $10,000 fine for that. I think that's that's not an outcome anybody's looking for, but that is a potential outcome if it's full CPA Consumer Protection Act enforcement. So, you know, in other registries, there is a sort of, you know, if you're sixty days late, it's a $200 fine, and then it's it can accrue up from there. I don't wanna muddy the waters at this late stage, but from our perspective, Chair, you have laid out the the two paths we think make sense, but I also understand no enforcement could mean not enough registration, so there may be a middle way that suggests some kind of financial administrative penalty.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Senator Hashim.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Thanks. Maybe this is just a small detail change, but I'm looking at lines six and seven and where it says the as many details as possible, which subjectively that that could be you know, that could mean a lot of different things. Could we potentially narrow that down to just, you know, whatever the details would be that the AG's office would include in its complaint? Because it would have to file, you know, some level of detail in their complaint that they would file sixty days later, I would imagine.

[Todd Delos]: Yeah. And I certainly, I will just be candid. I it's very hard for me to imagine given the resource constraints we've got, that we would move to a full civil action just based on the failure of someone to register. I I think one of the challenges I see as this is laid out beyond kind of the the broader principle concern around circumscribing how we enforce consumer protection is there's no notice to the AG. So this is gonna be a complaint driven process, and and I don't even see kinda what that pathway is. We're not going to know what EdTech products are out there and we're not going to really look at the registry unless we get complaints around that. And I think again, the version has passed by the house had some kind of feedback mechanism in it where I think there was a study that came upon the heels of the registration where schools were gonna, support that night. I apologize that I didn't have a chance to review all the testimony you all have seen, so I'm sure there was discussion in this body about that process. But that at least provided a direct notice provision to the AG's office if there were products that were found to be that should have registered but hadn't registered. But at this point, you know, we don't have the resources to to kind of cross reference that at the AG's office. So, you know, to your point center machine, it's not fewer details would be helpful, but it's not gonna I think the complaint if we ever got to that point again, a $10,000 penalty for someone failing to register feels like a lot. So that that complaint would essentially just be. Here's the law. This product is alleged to be used in this space. It meets the definition, and it's not on the registry.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So, mister Terry, I'll just say, I mean, I think the committee's heard me say the registry has no teeth. It's okay if it has no teeth. To me, I mean, was trying to actually make it a meaningful tool about what's out in the field. I frankly don't think that's what we received. It was, you know, very open, like, student facing technology needs to register. The Secretary of State's office can't do any enforcement. The study that the AG's office is referring to was not necessarily a study, but AOE then taking what was on the registry and looking at whether or not they had privacy statements and were following the kids code, etcetera. I don't think you're going to capture the information you need to do a good job with it that way. So I'm sorry to the house, they keep hearing me say this, I think the registries may be the least important part of this, but they seem to think it will lead the country in making ed tech products register. So if it's just a toothless registry fine, that means we just take out all the enforcement and make the definitions as clear as possible, so we're not surprised if we get incomplete information. But the definitions were really not going to be achievable by any entity, even if they thought they were ed tech but they didn't have a contract with a school district. Like if we're trying to catch entities that might have pop up ads that just show up in our schools and nobody tried, you know, nobody authenticated that product in the school. I don't know how a registry does any of that, but I'm fine with taking everything out of the registry except the clearer definitions, just because I think it would be a difficult pursuit to otherwise have unclear definitions and then expect good information.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Oh, okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So we can take out all the enforcement.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Okay. Okay. Anything else, mister Dolos? No,

[Todd Delos]: mister chair, unless there are questions further. I appreciate the time.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Okay. Thank you for coming in. And you're welcome to stay on, of course, and listen to the rest of the testimony. Thank you. So next we have would be Bongesteel, superintendent from Montpelier Roxbury.

[Libby Bonesteel]: Yes, good morning, everyone. Thanks for having us in this morning. For the record, my name is Libby Bongsteel, and I serve as the superintendent of the Montpelier Roxbury School District, and I'm accompanied by Michael Berry, our director of curriculum and technology. Mike is expert in the field of educational technology, so I encourage the committee to ask him as many questions as you like because he's very good in this area. We're here to speak today to speak on H650, a bill that touches the very heart of how we prepare Vermont's children for their future. I want to begin by strongly advocating for the alternative language and two track approach proposed by the Vermont Agency of Education, the Vermont Superintendent's Association, the Vermont Principal Association, or the Vermont School Boards Association. Our state's leading educational organizations are in rare and unanimous agreement. We must separate the legal necessity of data privacy from the instructional challenge of educational technology effectiveness. Those two things are not the same. We urge this committee to support the AOE in providing statewide legal and contract management and to make participation in the Vermont Student Data Privacy Alliance, which we are a member. So if you have questions about that, please ask Universal. Crucially, we must ensure that curriculum decisions remain with local districts supported by state level guidance rather than a rigid state run product certification. Simply put, it is not the same at all as an outside entity certifying SED software and should not be treated as such. These decisions are carefully considered by our teaching staff and, like many instructional decisions, should not be legislated. I'll pass you over to Mike now.

[Michael Berry]: Hi, my name is Mike Barry. As a technology director, I agree with the core sentiment driving much of this bill. There is a screen time crisis. There are educational technologies that are used as passive crutches rather than profound learning tools. However, applying a five year moratorium on generative AI and chatbots isn't the solution. Part of the confusion and concern currently surrounding h six fifty stems from its broad use of nonspecific language. The bill uses terms like chatbot and generative AI interchangeably and without clear definitions. This is danger this is a dangerous conflation. It lumps together predatory social media style AI campaigns and companions designed specifically for parasocial engagement and endless scrolling with profound instructional AI tutors designed to help a student work through a complex physics problem. A blanket ban on chatbots also outlaws the speech to text accessibility bots that our dyslexic and multilingual learners rely on every single day to participate equitably in their education. Recently, a student said something to me that stopped me in my tracks. Speaking about the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, they said, It's really hard to watch the adults around us not know what to do with this. Our students are begging for our guidance. If we're going to survive the evolution of AI, it requires the most mature version of humanity. That maturity cannot be developed if students don't have the opportunity to learn, make mistakes, and understand these tools in a safe, supervised environment. We also must give them the opportunity to develop a critical understanding to do profound good with this technology, not remove the opportunities to do good. Just last week, we hosted the first annual Vermont AI and Impact student symposium. We challenged students to use AI to solve real world community problems. A junior from CVU built Weatherbird, an AI driven tool that integrates local weather and VTrans data to predict dangerous icy road conditions and flood threats to help keep teen drivers safe. Students from Essex High School built Neighbor AI, a tool designed to combat the epidemic of isolation among our elderly rural populations by facilitating community check ins and transit support. If H650's vague moratorium goes effect, these students never get the chance to build those profound human centric solutions. We cannot protect our students from the future by pretending it isn't happening.

[Libby Bonesteel]: In response to the current draft of H650, we recommend the following actions: Remove the five year moratorium and define the terminology. We ask that you strike the blanket ban on chatbots. Instead, the legislature must explicitly define and differentiate between instructional and accessibility AI, tools used for targeting learning, translation, or tutoring, and predatory companion AI, tools designed for emotional manipulation, parasocial relationships, or prolonged unstructured screen time. You can and should regulate the latter without banning the former. However, this is not something that can be accomplished in the limited time you have. This type of language needs to be well thought out after hearing from experts in both the fields of education and the field of generative AI so that it has the desired impact. AI changes by the minute. Language governing its use needs to be nuanced enough to respond to the rapid innovation. Number two, shift from the state certification to local pedagogical vetting. Instead of tasking the state with certifying products, require school districts to identify exactly how they will vet the technology used locally. This can be done in partnership with the AOE, as has been heard from testimony from the AOE, VPA, VSA, and VSBA. Tie ed tech vetting to the continuous improvement plan, or the CIP, require districts to implement a proven framework, such as the SAMR model, which stands for substitution, augmentation, modification, or redefinition, to ensure technology is used for profound instructional redesign rather than passive screen time. This can be tracked via the existing CIP process. Adopt the AOE VSA, VSBA, VPA data privacy recommendations. Secure our students' data today using the existing Vermont SDPA infrastructure. We need to work with our educators assessments so they measure process rather than product. We must empower students to be skeptical, analytical users of technology who understand how to verify information and use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch. These are not nice ideas for teachers and students to master. They are essential skills in the world our kids are entering, for some, in just a few short months. By filing the AOE and VSA's recommendations, we can secure our students' data today while ensuring they have the skills to lead in the world they will grow into. We're happy to take any questions you have.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Senator Ram Hinsdale, I see your hand up.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I have lots of questions, and so I really appreciate the invitation to engage because this is sort of I just like to research the second we get something what is happening on the ground, what is the best practice, etc. And speaking of which I think some folks heard before we went live, I have a high school student with me here today. She's off camera and I'm letting her sort of gather her thoughts and questions, but I found that it is really hard to have these conversations without talking with and to young people. Her name is Penelope Hyman and she's a sophomore at Vermont Common School. And so if you see me look over to whatever direction, this is my left, you know, she's sitting with me sort of taking this all in. So I'm just I say that and then I want to note that the pause on chatbots has a I would call, some could call a big loophole, some could call more intentional direction setting where a principal or building leader could approve the use of those chatbots or generative AI or companion AI, but it would have to be done in an intentional way before students are exposed to something that may become companion AI quite quickly. And to that point, here's my first question. We kept hearing be part of this coalition, etcetera, and it all stemmed back to VITALEARN. So VITALEARN, are you part of that? Is it Michael?

[Michael Berry]: Yes, yes, I am a member.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And do you vet the 40 ish products that are on the VitalLearn website for bulk purchase?

[Michael Berry]: We choose from them which ones we are going to use. We're pretty conservative in Montpelier about how many products we're going to use, so we use it more as a purchasing consortium.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. So if you, I mean, if you saw something on there that gave you pause or concern, who would you report that to?

[Michael Berry]: Well, there's a couple places I would report it to the VitalEARN board, all of which are very accessible and say that there's a concern there. There's a listserv for tech directors in the state where we communicate daily about such topics, and so it would likely be expressed there. And then I would also have conversations locally about those concerns.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. I would ask Daphne if I could share my screen because when I just started scanning the options on VitaLearn, found one that gave me significant concern and maybe the board will hear me say this now, but I'd like you to just walk through it with me and see if it gives you any pause or concern that it, you know, things like this might be available for bulk purchase. And in my view, it may promote the the kind of companionship of AI that would concern us, especially for younger children. What am I doing, Daphne? Do I

[Michael Berry]: You should have permission to share your screen now, you so just need to Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Go to the

[Michael Berry]: bottom of the Zoom and and hit the green button.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I don't know what it's telling me to do here, but let's Over the shoulder. This is like on oh, woah. Content only. This is like oh, here we go. Okay. So hopefully, you all can see inanimate Alice.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. So I just looked at the name of it, and I was already concerned. Why is something called inanimate girl name something that's available? A coming of age tale, explore inanimate Alice, a girl who dreams of one day becoming a game designer. I just want to note in the five pictures at the top, and this seems promotional, you never see her face. She's looking at a screen and you never see her face. She's a born gamer. She travels the world with her parents. She does her schoolwork and produces digital art, including the creation of a digital friend Brad who lives on her device. She talks to him and he responds just like an AI bot. But Brad is much more than an interactive image, so much more. K? I think somewhere it says here, narrative spine through the curriculum for students from elementary school to middle school and into high school. I can play the video if we want. And then, there's prompts, whatever whatever that means. The the first thing you see that's that gives you a highlight of what the interactive games are is cleaning up a kitchen and then the purchasing information and the cost per student. Just so committee members know these are like the bulk purchasing options you get probably for each software. I'd love to hear your comments on the value of this or what more you'd need to know to feel as to whether or not this had educational value for kids?

[Michael Berry]: Yeah, so first, I don't represent Vitalearn, so I would want them to have an opportunity to speak to this as well. I share many of the same concerns that you have with this, and actually that goes to what we shared in our testimony as well, that drawing the line between things with Companion AI and those that have educational value. I think an important thing to note is that VitalLearn is extremely separate from the privacy consortium. It's two different organizations.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So Vitality goal was, as it came to us from the House, the goal was efficacy, learning efficacy. So I understand we've had to try and separate out what we're trying to do on data privacy from efficacy. But if you feel like an expert on educational technology policy, if you could speak to the efficacy you see here, and if you think any school should choose that, because we have to legislate for the entire state.

[Michael Berry]: Absolutely, yeah. I think that there needs to be some clarity around what how do schools, decide on vetting technology. So one of the concerns about age six fifty that I have right now is that if it's left up to principals, we'll have some of the output that we have in other areas of AOE educational guidance where different schools do things differently. So we'll have a wide discrepancy between schools about how they vet technology and what their use is. There are several states that have done some work around this already. Idaho has done some work. Ohio has done some work where they have put in place requirements for schools to be really clear about what is Companion AI, what is educationally profound AI use, what is appropriate for

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: students you define educationally profound? Is that like a deep learning tool or what do we mean?

[Michael Berry]: It's more than sitting in front of a computer. It's similar to the examples I shared from the symposium where a student is taking societal issues and really tackling how they can make an impact in the world using tools such as AI to be able to accentuate that learning versus something like you just showed, where we're sitting passively in front of a computer and or replacing an adult or human interaction.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And what I'm trying to get at, too, with the definition, because I feel really strongly we should keep some form of pause or ban on companion AI, and the promotion of relationships through AI. Whatever you if you wanna help rewrite the language, that's fine. But it struck me that it it isn't a chatbot itself, but it's promoting that the person you embody when you participate in this computer program has their closest friend is AI.

[Libby Bonesteel]: Yeah, what you're referencing is the predatory companion AI, which is what we talked about. It's not a blanket chatbot. So let's get but it

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: is not even it's not maybe companion AI, what we just saw. It's it's a contained universe where you're encouraged to create a relationship with a simulated companion AI. That's concerning to me. So I don't know how we define it so that we're not promoting companion AI even if they're not experiencing companion AI or whatever that product ends up doing to give you your best friend being companion AI.

[Michael Berry]: Yeah, there are some elements that people have worked out in 35 other states around how to make those definitions. There are existing models that are really clear, like implementing the SAMR model would help us really identify, are we replacing adults in this combination? Is this necessary? Is it educationally impactful? You know, Ohio has done a thing where they've embedded AI literacy into computer science graduation requirements, and it really specifies what are the tools that we're using and why. I think there's some strong examples. I think it would be, we could lean on other examples pretty easily to define those things. I think what you showed us does land in that bucket of something that I would not promote in school. I can't speak for why VitalLearn has it on there. I'm sure that there's I saw that it was ISTE approved and ASCD as well. So I'm sure people have looked at that. But as we move into this, newer and newer products are gonna start popping up that are gonna create new categories that we don't even know about yet.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And I just don't want any approval system or it showing up for bulk purchase on VitalLearn to replace the careful work that a school has to do to vet those products. So you can help me rewrite this, but this one's really important to me because I can't tell you why that was approved after reading what's on there. I wouldn't want my child to use anything called inanimate Alice while they're struggling with ideas of self harm and mental health. The whole thing, should give us all pause, and I want pause. That's what I want, and I want people to be thoughtful about the products that are in front of our kids, everyone.

[Michael Berry]: Yeah. And I think if VitalLearn had a set of, regulations and standards that were expected of schools to be able to operate by, that would help them vet, before they do bulk purchasing consortium ideas with vendors like that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, if if they didn't hear me, I I hope you will take my concern about this this product, and I didn't get a chance to look at all of them to Vitalearn.

[Michael Berry]: I would be more than happy to do that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Senator Heffernan. You're muted, Senator Heffernan. Unmute.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: There we go. Sorry about that. I just wanna senator Hinsdale brought up a good point, but I also noticed when she was making her comments that that this was a child that wasn't in school, that she was traveling with her parents around the world. And that's a lot bigger difference than a school environment where you actually have teachers and parents engaged in in this in this subject. So I I I where it is concerning, it also comes down to the parent keeping an eye. And if they are having a problem, as senator Hinsdale would say, I don't want my child doing this, and bring it into the notar notice of the school. So I'm liking what they heard that they wanna use the Versus and AOEs version. And I think we should take a hard look at that going forward. And that's basically all I wanted to say.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. Any other questions? We actually, as I understand it, don't have our next witness until 09:30.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So the high school student with me does have a really good question, and I'm gonna check. Are you ready to ask it? Okay. Is that okay, mister chair?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: That'll be fine.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. I figured since we have the time, so, I introduced her a little bit. This is Penelope Hyman, who goes to Vermont Commons and is a sophomore, and she's gonna ask her question now.

[Libby Bonesteel]: Hi, Penelope.

[Penelope Hyman]: Hi. Oh my gosh. How does this bill define actual artificial intelligence versus generative AI? Because there's artificial intelligence in the scientific field of AI, in medicine, AI in weather data, and then there's generative AI like ChatGPT. There's Elon Musk's Grock, which generates photos and videos that use, like, up to 10 gallons of water per second. I was just wondering how, like, this bill is gonna define that and how it'll educate kids on what's the difference.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: She also asked a great question of what is the best pedagogy for an adult to be interacting with this kind of technology with the kids? Like, what does that look like so that it doesn't become predatory if they're not on the dark corners of the Internet by themselves?

[Michael Berry]: So, I have the same question about how the bill defines those things. That's what we spoke about. It needs to be much more defined. And unfortunately, there'll probably be new terms that need to be defined by Friday afternoon. But that's the nature of this beast. We are using a method of working with educators right now, that really focuses on not putting the tool in front of students until educators feel comfortable and understand it as well. And that's something that I think we've made a mistake with in the past around ed tech, where we purchase the product, put it out to students, and then we try to retroactively help adults around us understand it. So we're taking it slow and we're doing it right. And we train, up to three or four teachers a week, on a full day on what does this look like to talk to kids about this? And the whole goal is to start talking to kids about it, not to promote overuse of AI. Kids are looking for information from the adults around them about this. They are in a world of anxiety, and not talking about it is not helping with that anxiety. So we talk about what it looks like. There's incredible amounts of bias in AI information. We can talk about that without using AI. We can talk about that with students without using AI, having them in front of a computer. There are environmental impacts about AI, and there's a lot of misinformation about the environmental impacts of AI. We can talk about that with kids without putting them in front of AI. We need to be talking about them, talking to them about this. And what's happening is that when there are the concerns about AI, adults are are stopping the conversation with students. They're not sure where to go. So in Montpelier Roxbury, we're tackling that by doing specific training with adults, encouraging them to start talking with students about AI, being transparent about use, talking about bias, talking about how they're made, what it functions, where it pulls its information from, how do we check it, how do we vet it. Those are all things that we talk about every day, particularly in writing classrooms and ELA topics. This is not foreign to us. We need to be engaging in it. So there are a lot of ways that we're doing that. We're also creating several, lessons for teachers to be able to use with students that don't require computers but discuss AI itself. But again, I go back to the symposium where we had students who had the opportunity to use AI tools and did really profound and incredible things to impact our community, and that was because they had the opportunity to do good. And if we just take away the opportunity to interact with that, while we might mitigate some of the damage, I'd I'd argue that there's still gonna be some challenges. We're also removing the opportunity for them to do good stuff.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Thanks. Thank you. Senator Weeks?

[Sen. David Weeks]: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: to Okay, say now I can hear you better.

[Sen. David Weeks]: Okay. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. My microphone's a little bit removed. I just wanted to thank Libby and Michael for their testimony. I agree with you completely and I just want to let you know that I appreciate your testimony. Thank you for coming on today.

[Michael Berry]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Other questions? Okay. Well, you're muted, Senator Ram Hinsdale.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, I was I so I was actually trying to find something that was explaining sorry. I was explaining to Penny.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But I will say it's it's a PBS kids show called Lila in the Loop. I was trying to remember what the name is. And Lila in the Loop, her family has a little pet friend, and it appears to be like an AI friend. And I think it is, you know, I've watched it with my daughter and have, but I'm not an expert. I found it is a good way to understand this tool before she's exposed to it because it talks about whether or not this was your work and, you know, what happens when it just starts spiraling into something else is creating work for you, and it does it in a way that's age appropriate, and it isn't AI. It's not it's a shared TV screen with a kids show. So anyway, I hope to never sound like somebody who's just going to reject technology or want kids to have an abstinence only policy with technology, but if your district sets some kind of silver, gold, or platinum standard, we could do a lot of harm to our kids if they're not doing all of the things that you're talking about for quality control. And I'd rather we not do that harm because it'd be very hard to undo.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Okay. As it turns out, you're luckily or a little bit early because we're we're we're ready for mister Bloomberg.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Hi there. I'm Josh Bloomberg. I work with the Agency of Education, and I'm the educational technology Program Manager. So thank you for inviting me back to speak. And Daphne asked if I could jump in a little early, so that's why I'm popping in.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Good.

[Josh Bloomberg]: I may have lost the last, like, minute or two when I switched between the YouTube livestream and the Zoom. So if I missed some context, please help me. I believe you've received the submitted testimony from the VSA, Vermont Principal's Association, Vermont School Boards Association, and Vermont Agency of Education. And the goal was to kind of respond to your request to have some draft language that would speak to the earlier testimony that the agency of education presented around a solution for privacy as well as moving towards a solution for educational technology as well in terms of effectiveness. And then I followed some of the discussion, which I found really interesting in terms of how do we vet educational technology. It's it's made me realize there's a need for clearer guidance in terms of that. The SAMR model that was just highlighted is is one of the better models out there. In fact, the person who created that model lives in Vermont and is giving a keynote at Vermont Fest in the fall, as well as there's a Vat model, which is a popular recent model. And all of these are saying, basically, is this gonna improve the educational outcomes, and can it do something either doing better than what we're doing without the technology, doing it in a way we couldn't before. Right? So not something we could do easily without the technology. For instance, there's technology like polling the students in terms of what do students say in the room, and often you can simply ask the students to raise a certain number of fingers to vote on a multiple choice. Do you think it's one, two, or three? And if you ask everyone to raise their hands, often that's more effective than having some distracting tool in the classroom. So a lot of these models are about trying to measure, is this going to improve the educational outcomes above what we could have done without it? And is it helpful for me to read into testimony that legal language? I'm not sure if that's helpful. I was just asked to join very late last night, so I don't have prepared remarks.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: I I think we can read the language. I think it would be helpful just to sort of, like, tell us what you think it does versus the draft 1.2 that we've been looking at. Sure.

[Josh Bloomberg]: So it really takes a a very different style of approach. It breaks, two pathways. One, trying to address privacy, and the main vehicle for that privacy is, getting tight control over the digital privacy agreements formed between the school districts and the various vendors. The Vermont Student Data Privacy Alliance has a database, so there already is kind of a registry database of these data privacy agreements. Some of our districts actually list that on their website. So if you go to their technology section, you click a link, and you see all the data privacy agreements that that district has signed with various vendors over the years. That doesn't mean they have a current contract with them, so it can be a little not perfect one to one of what's being used, but it is what is approved to be used. So it might be a superset. And in terms of student data and FERPA law, right, if there is data that falls under the domain of FERPA, then the school needs to have an a privacy agreement with that vendor if they're storing data on their system. So there is gonna be some educational technology that doesn't have any real student data, but it's still educational technology. Right? If you watch, you know, videos, right, it's not collecting necessarily data, but you're consuming that media, right? And some of them may have click information, like lightweight quick information, but it's de identified from who the actual student is. Right? And so that may fall into a slightly different class. Right? And so those aren't gonna necessarily need privacy agreements, but those are still are gonna fall into, is this an effective tool in the classroom? Right? And so then the second half of that legal is trying to address the more of the effectiveness side, and the strategy that it takes is often what's happening like, these are these are products that teachers are choosing. Right? So there's there's a difference between what's happening in the cafeteria when no one's looking and the student is on their right device, right, if they have a laptop in the high school. They're they're getting filtered by the Internet filter of the school. Right? And that's gonna block them from getting to certain things. That school district is gonna control their Internet filter. But that is a different thing from the teacher saying, okay. Well, this is a software that I think is helpful, and I'm gonna have students use on class time. Right? And so that's where I'm thinking in terms of educational technology. And those, we need our teachers to have good solid curriculum that they've designed and been very intentional about the use of. Right? And that means also that the school districts, Michael Barry, who is just presenting, he wears both the director of curriculum and director of technology hat. So he's helping those teachers identify the curriculum that they're teaching. And so often they're bringing in various curricular programs, right, as well as supplemental materials or activities that they've designed, and all of that forms the curriculum that they're using. So in terms of choosing that educational technology, what we wanna do is survey the schools in terms of what are these core programs that we're using, and we're already kind of doing this in a number of spots. So for instance, ACT 173 was about early literacy and early math, and so we're surveying schools. What do you use as a literacy curriculum? What do you in terms of a program, primary program for teaching literacy and primary program for teaching math? And what we also wanna say is, well, well, what do you use as terms of supplemental software to teach math? Right? And so sometimes we we have schools who will purchase some math practice software, right? And so the students are able to go through some practice things, and it's aligned with the curriculum, maybe it's tangential to the curriculum. And so they get, the teacher would go in and configure, let's get some students some extra practice and coaching on these pieces. And some of those will have, okay, they're struggling, here's a video you can watch, here's an activity you can do to kind of coach you so you can get through it. And that lets the teacher work with one group of students, while one group at a table is working on their laptop and another group, and they can rotate them through. That way, the teacher can have more one on one time and small group time with the students who may be at different levels in mathematics. So we wanna be able to survey on that type of software. And so what the this and so that that would be in the trends. I'm trying to read through the the bill as it came through to you. Not bill. I'm sorry. The testimony and find the components.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: I think it's okay. I think we have a sense of what the agency is. Senator Ram Hinsdale, you have a question?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I do. And Josh, I don't know who Walter is, who just emailed me at a VitalLearn email, Walter Ripley.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Walter is with Slate Valley, so Slate Valley would be down by Fairhaven. He is the technology and data person for their school.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Is he on the board of Vitalearn?

[Josh Bloomberg]: He's on the board

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: of Vitalearn.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay, so maybe he was writing to me in his board capacity because he he emailed to just me to try and make it clear that VitalLearn as a as a web portal is not making any judgment calls on the value of the software. They are just making it available for bulk purchasing.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Yeah. I believe that's how VitalLearn works, and VitalLearn actually has some agreements with some other states, so it it is a way of getting better purchasing pricing for the schools by forming these bulk purchases, as well

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: as it helps fund their conferences and professional development that they offer. Okay. And you've heard me talk about Inanimate Alice, which is available for bulk purchase on your website. So what I think you and Walter are saying is that it is not a quality control mechanism.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Correct. Yeah. VitalLearn is not a quality

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: control indicating It's to anyone in the consortium whether or not the product is good for their kids.

[Josh Bloomberg]: I don't believe that is the full vetting that VitalLearn is doing. They're mostly saying, does this look like something that a school would buy that we could see someone being interested in, and is there a bulk pricing? So they're working as a nonprofit to provide that as a service, but they're not going as far as the vetting that would happen within a school district. And this is a little bit why I was concerned about the agency of education being able to vet stuff, because it really depends how these things are gonna actually be used in the classroom. And it means actually getting in there, right? Like, we're just looking at the marketing website for inanimate analysis. If a teacher said that I was in a district role as a tech director or an administrator and the teacher said, Well, I wanna bring this thing in, we'd wanna demo it. We'd wanna be able to see what it actually looks like. We'd wanna know if there's research on whether or not it's effective. We'd wanna look at different angles. And that deep dive comes from the perspective of how are you going to use it in the classroom? And just from their website, you can't really determine that for almost any of these products.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. But there's IT experts who are looking at how it's gonna be used. Do they also have teaching licenses? Do they also

[Josh Bloomberg]: You mean the people on Vitalearn's board? Sure. Some of them do, but not all. Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Most are I mean, you can understand like, if you can follow me through the concern, right? There's a program called Inanimate Alice a time we have, you know, record levels because of, you know, some might say because of screen time or social media, we have, you know, record numbers of mental health issues and, things, especially among teen girls. So we have a program called Inanimate Alice that's one of maybe 40 bulk purchase options on the VitalLearn website. And let's say I'm a parent because I am bringing the concern to you, why is this even being promoted for bulk purchase in our schools? And no one if no one on that board can explain to me why just because maybe somebody asked for it, that is going to confuse people. It's going to confuse people that somehow there's deeper quality control happening. And having that program is decertified or whatever it is makes me concerned about that certification being valid. So something needs to protect our kids and our families better

[Josh Bloomberg]: Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: In my mind from something like inanimate Alice where you can clean her kitchen with her. That's literally what's on your website at VitalLearn.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Well, I'm with the agency of education.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay.

[Josh Bloomberg]: But yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Walter or whoever.

[Josh Bloomberg]: But yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Like, who's responsible? Who's if you're not responsible at AOE, like, are you a licensed teacher? I mean, who is responsible for what is promoted to our kids and whether or not something called Inanimate Alice, where you travel the world with an AI chatbot, is in our kids' schools available for bulk purchase through a website that has the word Vermont and learn in it?

[Josh Bloomberg]: Right. I would wanna know what school districts are are using it and how they're using it. So for for a school district to use it, they would have to sign a privacy agreement with that vendor. For them to sign a privacy agreement with that vendor, it needs to move through that school district's vetting process. And that vetting process is is where the real control happens.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Is control happening, though? Like, maybe you all can tell me, maybe Vital Earn can tell me whose idea it was to put that on for bulk purchase, and we can and and someone can educate us on which school district is using it and why and what value they see in it. But at first glance, if I was a parent or even as a taxpayer and a policymaker, that software is available for $5 a student, and it could be harming our kids. So what is happening? Like, who why aren't you responsible for this at AOE? Is somebody responsible at AOE for making sure that the tools that are promoted in our schools are actually good for them.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Yeah. I and again, to actually know that requires deep diving each of those tools, and that needs to be a curricular decision, right? So that's, do I allow this in as a curriculum in my classroom or into my school, if I was working in a district? And those curricular decisions are done at the school district level. It doesn't make sense to do them higher because you need to actually have access to the product and actually find out, right? Just because the marketing says that this is safe and effective with your students, doesn't mean that it is. That requires actually saying, okay, you wanna sell this to us? Give us free access to try it. A couple of us teachers are gonna use it. We're gonna evaluate it, and we're gonna use a model like SAMR or the VAT model, where we say, is this effective? And we're gonna look at it from different angles. And our schools do that. They look from a privacy angle, as well as from an educational technology angle to say, should we allow this in? Is this something that we should use? So the way it would happen in most of the school districts is either a teacher or a principal is going to make that request of their district, and then their district staff will do that vetting process.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No. I I hear what you're saying, but I I think it's we we make state policy, and we're talking about diminishing the harm of companion AI

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Before it causes that harm.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Right. And and This is

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: a program where the best friend of a girl whose face you never see is a chatbot.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Right. In the

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: That, to me, feels like we aren't having the impact we would like to be having if that is being promoted, and and we're supposed to sort of accept that the system's working. I don't think the system's working if if someone if that program's being promoted from elementary school, middle school, and high school to clean a kitchen and interact with an AI chatbot.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Yeah. And I don't know what schools are using it or how they're using it currently. I'd have to I'd have to

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I think we should know that. I think someone should know that who's in charge of our kids' well-being.

[Josh Bloomberg]: There just is not a viable way for me to know what is happening in every little corner of every classroom in Vermont, right? I can know what is the core programs that they're using or the core curriculum. But if a teacher one day gets excited by a product and says, let's all go on his website because this is gonna be a good activity.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Mhmm. There's a difference between that and knowing that there's only 40 options on Vital Air.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And that this is one of them and that I don't know if you were unaware of that before today.

[Josh Bloomberg]: I wasn't aware.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Then it seems to me like you're not staying on top of the curricular offerings that are available in our schools and the value of them to our kids.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Yeah. Mean, I'm gonna need to to look into this particular one and we

[Sen. David Weeks]: can Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. It's under Weeks.

[Sen. David Weeks]: Yeah. We seem to have straight off of age six fifty and we're attacking a single piece of chat bot. Can we get back to base language and see if we have any support for this bill as it has dropped it?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: So, thank you, senator Weeks. Josh, I'm I'm interested. So your part of the proposal that you're talking about would involve guidance or model model not not model policy, I guess, but guidance from the agency. Yeah. And is it would you require that that guidance be adopted by districts?

[Josh Bloomberg]: Well, we wouldn't if we're issuing it as guidance, then obviously, we don't have a vehicle beyond that. But I would highly advocate that they do have that, and I think our districts know that they need it. The goal is really to give them best practices for that vetting. And we have, I would say the vast majority of districts already have a lot in place. So my goal would be to work with those directors of curriculum and those directors of technology and say, what are you doing already? And then let's pull in what are the best practices amongst there and so that everyone is using those same best practices.

[Sen. David Weeks]: Right.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: So thank you. So I guess the question is, which direction do we wanna go as a committee? What are we thinking about? What are what are people's what's the what's the sense of the committee on direction? Anybody want to chime in?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: I'll say I'm liking what I heard about, using the Versus and the AOEs version.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Okay. Senator Weeks, I see your hand up.

[Sen. David Weeks]: Yeah, thanks, Trevor. I'm going support one of the kind of pre issue of the working group for analysis of the issue and the solutions. Not in favor of, I don't see the benefit right now for the registry and I certainly don't see the prohibition for chatbots as a blanket for the reasons that Libby and Michael articulated pretty well. That's where I stand at the moment and I'm still listening.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Senator Ruchin? I'm just gonna mention the looking at the five year prohibition again and thinking back to our other conversation and also what we've been talking about today. I mean, I'd be supportive of reducing the amount of years, but I think there should be a prohibition. But I also think there should be opportunities for teachers to use these in an educational way to say, here's what a chatbot is and here's what to look out for. You know, mean, tools and these systems are becoming more prevalent in society and they're going to grow at an exponential rate. And I think having an understanding of how they work and what they do and what to look out for, I think that makes sense. But I think there needs to be some way of making sure that these aren't just being used in every capacity for being used without any sort of oversight or regulation for everyday school activities.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: I actually think the registry is worthwhile. It's a building block, so I'm sort of interested in keeping the registry in. I like the idea of a model policy, and I think we should go with, the AG's recommendation to take that language out. So I'm somewhere in I also have questions about whether

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Mister chair, take which language out? Just the enforcement of the

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: rest Yeah. The of enforcement language out. Okay. I also wanna make sure that we're actually getting at advertising and data collection as we do this and make sure that we're working toward getting rid of both of those. So I don't know if that's in the form of the model policy, I mean, the guidance or whether we do it in some other way, but those things really I want to make sure we get at. So I don't know exactly where we go with that, but

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So I emailed

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Go ahead.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, I'll just say I emailed Libby Bongesteel because I already have her email from past work to work with her IT director, Michael, on the language that might come from other states on companion AI. I think we I mean, I hope we look at this as when we hear it's evolving and nobody knows what's happening in which school, but we should trust them. I hope we hear that full grown adults are struggling with companion AI, and we should not be putting this in front of our kids without really intentional and sophisticated thinking about the pedagogy. And so I'm happy to work on the definition of that and the number of years. I agree with Senator Hashim that, you know, we don't need a lengthy pause in place if we're going to signal that we're continuing our work right away, but it certainly leaves the opportunity for teachers and principals to thoughtfully request an exception to that. But let's contemplate what is a good exception to introducing companion AI to all of our kids, any of our kids, especially before high school.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: I don't disagree with the dangers of this. But I also heard Libyan Michael talking about the fact that there is a rationale, there is a need, but I also am not opposed to what you're saying. Think in principle that the starting point is no or caution, and then some authority being given to use it. That seems like a possibility to me. Senator Heffernan, you've got your hand up.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan]: Yes, I'm going back to what we always hear that we should listen to the professionals in the field. And we just heard from two telling us that it's being used responsibly. The Senator Hinsdale keeps going back to Alice AI, and that is not being used in a school that's being used by an individual traveling the world. It's sad to see, but I constantly hear in this committee that we should listen to the professionals and the field experts. We have field experts telling us that they are doing the job, that they are watching out for this, they are looking for these not That they're not allowing a bad AI into their school. And if a parent believes they are, they can notify the school and then right action can be taken. Our policy should be one that allows that to happen and allows the teacher to teachers and SUs and SDs to pick what they believe is right for their teaching. And so I really like the language that we're hearing from the V's and the AOE. They all agree. That says a lot. And as far as punishment, just what they said, of suing that it's a fine of some sort. So that's my thoughts on the matter. Thought

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I'd Mr. Chair, can I just chime in and say when Penny asked her question about how they're introducing it to kids, etcetera, even Michael, you know, in a pretty well resourced district with a lot of parents who are paying attention, said we had put the technology out there in certain cases and then tried to put the toothpaste back in the tube and have learned from that? We are in a really experimental phase of all of these technologies. And even Michael said, you know, we have a much more intentional and thoughtful process. I'd like to believe everyone has that, but if even he's admitting that that has not always happened, then all we're asking for is more time and better vetting before new and constantly evolving technologies are put in front of our kids. I see Josh nodding along too. It gives AOE time to catch up, principals, parents, and kids. You know, it's just really unfair to have a mistake like this happen, have no pedagogy around it, and then try to fix it afterwards.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Well, I think so Senator Ram Hinsdale, you've been sort of taking the lead on this. You've heard the committee, you've heard the discussion, you've heard the comments from the committee, some of the thoughts, the concerns both ways. And if you're telling me that you're gonna continue to work with Michael in particular and the AOE or whomever to try to meld what you've heard today, I think that'll be helpful.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Josh, if you wanna work with me, you're welcome to email me. I I hope you felt it was illuminating to see something on VitaLearn, which you might question the curricular value and the efficacy. I hope you will follow-up on that because I, as a lawmaker, don't know who I would turn to for that quality

[Michael Berry]: control. And I should be able to turn to my principal and my superintendent. But if things are

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: happening don't without their approval, I don't see how that happens before a child might get pulled into something or damaged, and I think AOE should take that seriously.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Yep. I did search the privacy consortium database. I can't find a signed agreement in Vermont with that company, so I I don't know of any place that's using it. So I I'll need to inquire with Vital Earn if they don't because they would have the purchasing records.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: The Maybe they can keep their website more updated if no one's using it. Right. Maybe take it off.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Yep. And then the in terms of the AI chatbots, so the AI guidance that we issued from the agency of ed suggests that elementary school students don't use chatbots at all, and that the the chatbots for middle school would be more structured like an AI tutor and of these very tailored scenarios. So it's not something that you can possibly have a full conversation with, it's not an open ended thing. And that those open ended things happen more in a high school setting once students have developed a level of AI literacy. The timeline for that, which I've been describing in schools, is where you're at now should be more conservative, and then you need to wait till your teachers learn to use this and you get experience with these tools to figure out where it's appropriate. So I don't know of any middle or elementary schools that are giving access to an open ended chatbot throughout the entire state. So I think this stuff is happening a lot slower than we might think. And I share the concern around mental health and anthropomorphizing these chatbots. I think it's a hard thing because I think that some of the federal regulations around chatbots that's getting discussed was looking about, is it pretending to be a licensed person or a professional, right? Because for instance, students could turn to one of these things for counseling because it feels private. It may not be private from our perspective, but from a student's perspective, it feels private, but it's not a licensed mental health professional, right? And using it that way is not safe. And the same way as using it to be a friend is probably not a healthy use for a student, right? And so those aren't appropriate uses to be happening in You our

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: know, Penny mentioned just the notion that if it's introduced to kids in middle school, it should be through a health class. You know, it isn't an academic tool if it's a companion.

[Josh Bloomberg]: If playing a role as if it's an anthropomorphized person. I actually don't think that actually is probably the best use

[Penelope Hyman]: Mhmm.

[Josh Bloomberg]: Of these things educationally. Right? So, like, for instance, some of the math ones, the student writes in the steps of their math problem, and it's just saying, on step two, it looks like you did this. Why did you make that decision and what might you change? Right? That's a chatbot, but it's a very focused chatbot in a very narrow center. It's not something that you're gonna anthropomorphize as a person or a friend, right? Because you can't if you tried having that conversation, it'd be like, I'm only talking about this one math problem and the steps in the math problem. That's the only thing it's allowed to talk about. I don't know if Senator Hashim remembers

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: the little Microsoft Word paper clip, but, like, kids are very impressionable at a young age. It doesn't take much for them to feel like they have a relationship with something, and we really need to be cognizant of that in middle school and high school.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. Okay. I think we're there's I think we've kind of reached the point of, saturation here on this. I I, think if senator Ram Hinsdale, if you're gonna work with some people taking in all the comments you've heard from our witnesses and from the committee members and where people are and have you have a sense of that, and wanna try to frame another draft, that would be helpful.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Mister chair, the I'm I'm open to the opt out piece. I worry that the opt out eclipses doing good work for all kids and parents. You know, some parents like, I'm I'm very open to it, but not to replace another section about quality control because an opt out is simply the parents who might do the most quality control just saying, No, I've had it because nobody's changing this.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: I don't see that in the VSD.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: This is what I mean, so I'm trying to channel Senator Williams, I who's mentioned think Senator Heffernan brought it up. Okay. And that's what we have the most emails about is incorporating the opt out language. I'm just opening that up before we end because I'm I'm open to adding it, not to replace another section, And I feel like that's some of the advocacy I heard. Let me

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: say I'm very skeptical of opt out on this because of the difficulty of teaching in the classroom with some in, some out. And I think that the point of this is figuring out how to make sure the technology is being used in a way that actually benefits kids. And I think if we're doing that, we're probably okay. I'm very skeptical of that. Could be, I'm open to being proven wrong or rethinking it, and I'm also that sounds like something we're rushing into and that we have the one way or another, either the task force you're talking about over the course of the summer or the education committee, I mean, or the agency looking at those kinds of issues, and that's something that I think we can wait for a report and have that be part of the next issue.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Can I just point out the agency also did not agree to do that work? So I feel like I hear senator Weeks and Heffernan saying, let's let the agency do it. We hear the agency saying, let individual districts do it. They have not taken responsibility for doing something differently.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: Okay, Senator Hashim. Thanks. Quick question,

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: going back a few pieces here, page four, three A and B. Did we come to a conclusion on those sections? And the reason I'm asking is, as it touches judiciary, I'm just thinking about the next forty eight hours session and whether we want to take a quick look at it just so that if it stays or if it goes and the bill goes to the floor, we can say that judiciary took a quick look.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: I have a sense that we're sort of on the we're taking it out. We're taking it enforcement stuff out for now.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: That's what I thought. I just wanted to confirm that was the case. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz]: And thinking about this partially as building blocks. So good. We will see everybody tomorrow. So if you have a longish floor starting at 09:30 and then committees starting hopefully at 01:15. Okay. We are adjourned. Thanks, everybody.