IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021 - 93

AI and Data Rights
Considerations for U.S.
Policy
Elma Hajric
School for the Future of Innovation in Society,
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281 USA
 The incepTion of artificial intelligence (AI)
dates back to the 1950s, with the latest wave of AI featuring
unprecedented " machine learning " capabilities,
including " deep learning. " With these increased
capacities, AI is disrupting society in both beneficial
and disempowering ways, exemplified in medical
and scientific advances and enabling oppressive surveillance
[1]. The rate of adoption and potential of
this wave of AI are novel, as are the socio-technical
problems developing with emerging technologies
powered by AI.
AI is already ubiquitous in many applications
and devices, such as Amazon's Alexa, and features
" cascades of labeled data build a detailed profile of
our personalities, habits, demands, and desires " [2].
These developments have led to concerns around
the protection of personal information in the digital
space and rights to data ownership, particularly as
AI expands data-processing abilities. According to
Dataquest in India, " about 90% of global data was
created in the last couple of years but only 1%-3% of
this data has been analyzed " [3]. These new analytical
capacities increase concerns regarding data protection
in digital spaces and the need for approaches
to mitigate them.
Mass troves of data, often referred to as " Big
Data, " are needed for AI. Corporations are set to
maximize profits by collecting increasing amounts
of data to build AI datasets. A large amount of revenue
is extracted from data, without direct benefit to
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2021.3101924
Date of current version: 2 September 2021.
September 2021
the individual. There is currently $64 billion in data
revenue for 2021, and this is projected to increase
to $103 billion in 2027 [4]. These figures demonstrate
the amplified interest in data and underscore
the need to ensure protection against nefarious use,
especially with personally identifiable information
(PII). PII refers to information that is traceable to an
individual, such as names and addresses and other
data of sensitive nature [5].
Reports of misuse of data have sparked pressures
for policy response around protection of data. Some
countries have enacted comprehensive regulations,
such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
in the European Union (EU). The United States lags
behind in creating federal data regulations due to a
prioritization of innovation and reliance on guidelines,
such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
guidelines [6]. There is mounting pressure to adopt
comprehensive regulation with increasing state-led initiatives
and concerns about surveillance and biometric
information [7].
This article analyzes the topics of data rights and
how AI complicates the matter. It also proposes pathways
the United States can consider taking, recommending
a multifaceted approach comprised of a
comprehensive federal regulation and soft-law governance
to ensure AI is created for societal benefit.
Data rights: Ownership, security,
privacy, consent, and transparency
The digital era alters the conversation around
ownership immensely due to the intangibility of
" bits " of data. The personal computing experience
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021

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