A proposed Texas law that requires schools to use artificial intelligence to review library material for sexual content could “ban books at warp speed,” advocates warn.
The legislation, House Bill 4448, was introduced by state Rep. Hillary Hickland, R-Belton. It requires school districts to have books reviewed by a third party’s artificial intelligence system before purchase.
The AI tool will be used to determine if the material is “sexually relevant” or “sexually explicit.” Titles rated “sexually explicit” cannot be purchased by schools, while those determined to be “sexually relevant” must require parental consent for student access.
The bill raised red flags for the Chamber of Progress, a tech industry trade association that advocates for progressive policies. The group sent an opposition letter to Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, on March 12.
Speech and content moderation is one of the Chamber of Progress’s core focuses. In 2023, it published a report on how right-wing curriculum censorship and book ban policies are now being used to restrict information on the Internet.
LoneStarLive.com spoke to Todd O’Boyle, vice president of tech policy, about the group’s concerns over Texas House Bill 4448.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Question: Why do you think someone would want to use AI to review and potentially ban books?
Answer: One of the first questions I ask a sponsor of a bill is, “What’s the problem you’re trying to solve?” And I try to have a good faith conversation. It’s hard to take this piece of legislation in good faith, though.
It really does feel like a direct attack on the most vulnerable Texas students. We’ve seen time and again, the legislators that are advancing book bans are the same ones that are advancing anti-LGBTQ+ measures broadly.
It occurs to me that you would only want to bring AI tools into the book ban conversation if you want to be able to ban books at warp speed. You want to be able to ban books with the efficiency that a school board or handful of concerned parents could never achieve on their own.
This bill says they’re going to identify a handful of vendors that can be used to ban books, that can be used to scan materials and determine whichever ones are “sexually relevant” or “sexually explicit” using AI. We know that AI tools are incredibly efficient at processing large amounts of data in a short amount of time, so it seems calculated to ban books at a speed and with an efficiency we’ve never seen before.
Q: AI bias is a known issue. Could it affect these book reviews?
A: Using AI to do this is uniquely problematic. The mere presence of a gay character might be enough to trigger an AI algorithm to determine the book to be “sexually relevant.”
According to the legislative text, the state will choose a handful of vendors that are going to be approved to do the scanning of library materials. Let’s be honest, which vendors will be approved? It will be the vendors who have AI tools that err on maximal censorship, that will flag anything, like a book with two dads, as “sexually relevant.”
I think it’s really hard to escape the impact that this could have on basic health information, too. I don’t see how any library could carry factual information about contraception and reproductive choice because they would all be tagged as “sexually relevant.”
Q: Have you seen any AI tools made specifically for book reviews?
A: I am not aware of a single product that is purpose-built to ban books. But I think the bigger picture here is that AI tools are very, very efficient at consuming large amounts of information very quickly and then summarizing them or screening a large amount of information and flagging every reference to a specific topic or keyword.
They’re purpose-built to do that kind of thing, that’s one of their core functions. It’s really easy to turn that technology into a tool for rapidly identifying any book that is potentially even tangentially “sexually relevant” and then keeping it off the shelves.
Q: Have you seen a similar bill proposed in any other state?
A: No. Texas is really leading the way in a very bad way here. I hope this is not the start of a trend to accelerate the culture wars at a high speed.
