Pennsylvania HB 1533: An Act amending Title 18 (Crimes and Offenses) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, in culpability, providing for liability for deployment of artificial intelligence system.

Bill Text

PRINTER'S NO. 1794
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
HOUSE BILL
No. 1533
Session of
2025
INTRODUCED BY HOWARD, PIELLI, SANCHEZ, HILL-EVANS, VENKAT,
WEBSTER AND NEILSON, MAY 30, 2025
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY, MAY 30, 2025
AN ACT
Amending Title 18 (Crimes and Offenses) of the Pennsylvania
Consolidated Statutes, in culpability, providing for
liability for deployment of artificial intelligence system.
The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
hereby enacts as follows:
Section 1. Title 18 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated
Statutes is amended by adding a section to read:
§ 306.1. Liability for deployment of artificial intelligence
system.
(a) Liability.--A person that engages in the deployment of
an artificial intelligence system to perform an automated or
autonomous function shall be subject to criminal or civil
liability, or both, for any negative outcome arising from the
deployment, including:
(1) Physical harm or endangerment caused by artificial
intelligence system-driven machinery, robotics, self-driving
vehicles or autonomous systems.
(2) Economic misconduct, including price-fixing, bid-
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rigging, market allocation or fraud conducted through
artificial intelligence system-driven decision making.
(3) Unlawful data scraping, copyright infringement,
intellectual property theft or violations of privacy and data
protection laws committed through automated or autonomous
systems.
(4) Discriminatory, defamatory or otherwise harmful
decision making arising from algorithmic bias or automated
processing.
(5) False, deceptive or misleading statements generated
or distributed through artificial intelligence system models
under the control of a person.
(6) Any other act that, if committed by a person, would
constitute a violation of law or amount to tortious conduct.
(b) Automation.--Automating an action does not remove a
person's general duty of care relating to the action as
established under common law.
(c) D efenses.--
(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), a person may
not avoid liability under this section by asserting that:
(i) The artificial intelligence system acted
autonomously or without explicit human instruction after
the person engaged in the deployment of the artificial
intelligence system.
(ii) The outcomes of the artificial intelligence
system's decision making were unintended, unforeseen or
the result of machine-learning adaptation.
(iii) The artificial intelligence system was
trained, developed or provided by a third party and the
person merely initiated the deployment of the artificial
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intelligence system.
(iv) The artificial intelligence system was
marketed, certified or believed to be "safe," "self-
regulating" or "autonomous."
(2) A person may assert a defense to liability under
paragraph (1) by demonstrating that:
(i) the person implemented reasonable, ongoing
oversight, safeguards and fail-safe mechanisms designed
to prevent unlawful, negligent or harmful conduct and
took timely corrective action once the person became
aware of a risk or failure relating to the artificial
intelligence system; or
(ii) the artificial intelligence system's harmful
act or omission resulted solely from an unforeseeable and
unauthorized interference by an external actor and the
person had previously implemented reasonable security
measures designed to prevent the unauthorized use.
(3) The failure to establish a defense under paragraph
(2) shall result in full liability for the deployment as
specified in this section.
(d) Definitions.--As used in this section, the following
words and phrases shall have the meanings given to them in this
subsection unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:
"Artificial intelligence system." As follows:
(1) A machine-based system that can, for a given set of
human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations
or decisions influencing real or virtual environments,
including the ability to:
(i) P erceive real and virtual environments.
(ii) Abstract perceptions made under this paragraph
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into models through analysis in an automated manner.
(iii) Use model inference to formulate options for
information or action based on outcomes under
subparagraphs (i) and (ii).
(2) The term includes generative artificial intelligence
and any substantially similar technology yet to be developed.
"Deployment." As follows:
(1) The use of an artificial intelligence system in a
manner that has the potential to affect external persons,
systems or legal interests.
(2) The term includes commercial implementation,
enterprise use, individual use or the use of autonomous
systems affecting third parties.
(3) The term does not include the use of purely
experimental, nondeployed research models if the models are
reasonably secu