Artificial Intelligence Act
HB60 creates the “Artificial Intelligence Act,” a statewide regulatory framework for certain artificial intelligence systems, especially “high-risk” systems used in consequential decisions affecting education, employment, lending, health care, housing, insurance, and legal services. The bill defines key terms such as developer, deployer, high-risk AI system, algorithmic discrimination, risk incident, and consequential decision, and it sets out duties for both developers and deployers to reduce discriminatory harms and increase transparency.
For developers, the bill requires reasonable care to protect consumers from known or foreseeable risks of algorithmic discrimination, disclosure of system documentation and training-data summaries to recipients, public posting of a summary of high-risk systems offered, and notice to recipients and the Department of Justice when a risk incident occurs. For deployers, the bill requires risk-management policies, annual impact assessments, consumer notices before AI is used in consequential decisions, post-adverse-decision explanations and appeal rights, and ongoing public notice about deployed high-risk systems. The bill also requires disclosure when consumers are interacting with AI, while carving out exceptions for obvious AI interactions and for trade secrets, privileged information, security-sensitive information, and several categories of federally regulated or exempt activity.
HB60 would add a new chapter of state law governing the development and deployment of high-risk AI systems in New Mexico. It would impose affirmative compliance duties on private entities, create documentation and notice obligations, require periodic impact assessments and risk-management programs, and authorize the Department of Justice to enforce the act after rulemaking. It also allows consumers to seek declaratory or injunctive relief and attorney fees for violations, and it makes violations an unfair practice enforceable under the Unfair Practices Act. The bill would affect developers, deployers, financial institutions, health-related entities, and any business using AI in consequential decision-making, while preserving exemptions for trade secrets, certain federal uses, research, security, and other specified circumstances.
No committee transcripts or recorded votes were provided, so there is no direct evidence of formal support or opposition in the available materials. Based on the bill text alone, the measure appears to be framed as a consumer-protection and anti-discrimination bill, with a strong emphasis on transparency, accountability, and human review. The structure of the bill suggests an intent to regulate AI use without banning it outright, which may appeal to proponents of responsible AI governance while still imposing significant compliance obligations on industry.
The main points of contention are likely to be the scope of regulation, the burden on developers and deployers, and the balance between transparency and protection of proprietary information. Businesses may object to annual impact assessments, public disclosures, consumer notice requirements, and the obligation to provide detailed documentation about training data, bias testing, and mitigation measures. Another likely issue is the breadth of the “high-risk” definition and the potential for the law to reach employment, housing, lending, insurance, and health-care decisions. At the same time, consumer advocates would likely support the bill’s appeal rights, disclosure requirements, and enforcement tools, while industry stakeholders may press for broader exemptions, narrower definitions, and stronger trade-secret protections.