By Jack Johnson and Hillary Jorgensen

There are always pros and cons with advances in technology. Cars revolutionized transportation, allowing their owners unprecedented mobility — but also increased accidental death and air pollution. Chemotherapy can shrink or eliminate cancer — but it also damages healthy cells and makes patients feel ill. 

Artificial intelligence is no different. AI promises unparalleled efficiency and productivity — but it’s important to recognize the risks, like potential discrimination and loss of privacy.

Across the country, states are grappling with how to regulate AI responsibly, and Colorado has an opportunity to lead nationally on ethical AI policy. This year, SB26-189 is an important first step in providing protection for everyday Coloradans while ensuring innovation aligns with civil rights and accessibility principles.

Too often, people with disabilities are excluded from the design and testing of new technologies, leading to products and systems that unintentionally create barriers. This bill offers a necessary guardrail that helps ensure AI systems don’t quietly institutionalize discrimination against people with disabilities.

AI is already making critical decisions about our lives and futures in the areas of employment, housing, health care, education, insurance and public benefits. For people with disabilities, AI systems can determine whether someone gets hired, receives accommodations, qualifies for services, or gains access to essential support.

This technology “learns” from historical data, often replicating and amplifying existing discrimination. This data can reflect longstanding societal biases against disabled people and other marginalized communities. If unchecked, automated systems can scale discrimination faster and more invisibly than traditional decision-making processes.

People with disabilities are especially vulnerable since many tools are designed around “average” patterns of speech, movement, communication, or behavior. That means voice recognition systems may misunderstand speech impairments, hiring algorithms may misinterpret autistic communication styles or facial expressions and chatbots and digital systems may not work with assistive technologies like screen readers.

It’s essential consumers receive notice when AI affects consequential decisions, and that there’s recourse when the technology causes harm, such as denying someone a job, housing or health care. Meaningful human review provisions are an important safeguard against harmful automated errors and unintended discrimination because algorithms cannot fully understand context, nuance, disability, or lived experience.

Strong guardrails don’t stop innovation, they build public trust in emerging technologies. Businesses and developers benefit when AI systems are transparent, fair and responsibly deployed. Clear standards can also help reduce legal and reputational risks.

Civil rights protections must evolve alongside technology. As AI becomes more embedded in everyday life, our laws must keep pace. Existing anti-discrimination protections mean little if harmful decisions are hidden. Colorado lawmakers have an opportunity to ensure technological progress does not come at the expense of equity, accessibility and fundamental fairness.

SB26-189 is a good start. It establishes reasonable expectations around consumer notice, documentation and transparency, as well as provides opportunities to correct inaccurate personal data. These are practical, common-sense protections that support both innovation and accountability, correcting what has been an opaque decision-making process.

Artificial intelligence should expand opportunity, not quietly automate exclusion. We hope Colorado legislators embrace the opportunity to ensure innovation and civil rights move forward together.

Jack Johnson is Disability Law Colorado’s public policy liaison and Hillary Jorgensen is Colorado Cross Disability Coalition’s co-executive director. Both are members of the People’s Alliance for Responsible Technology (PART) and tireless advocates for Coloradans living with disabilities.