{"id":40183,"date":"2025-11-07T22:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/40183\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T22:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:12:08","slug":"texas-governor-names-ai-advisory-board-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/40183\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas governor names AI advisory board members"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday named eight members to a new AI advisory board tasked with guiding the state government\u2019s use of artificial intelligence tools.<\/p>\n

The new members<\/a> of the board, officially called the Public Sector Artificial Intelligence Systems Advisory Board, include several agency chief information officers, the chief financial officer of the state\u2019s criminal justice department, the public counsel of the state Office of the Public Insurance Counsel and two private-sector tech executives: Jaclyn Beerens, vice president of consulting services at the Canadian IT giant CGI, and Josh Chacona, regional vice president of solution engineering at Snowflake, a cloud storage and IT services firm headquartered in Montana.<\/p>\n

The board is the product of a law enacted<\/a> last June intended to guide the state\u2019s adoption of AI tools. The new law is also an outgrowth of the state\u2019s Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council, which was created in 2023<\/a> to study the state\u2019s use of AI systems and then disbanded at the start of this year.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Tan Parker, who introduced the bill creating the new board, has said the state needs to balance accountability and individual rights with the government\u2019s embrace of new AI technologies. The new law establishes an AI code of ethics that, upon the bill\u2019s introduction last April, Parker described as promoting innovation, \u201cwhile at the same time providing guardrails that protect civil liberties and personal data.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy narrowing our scope to higher-risk AI, we preserve innovation for everyday low-risk systems,\u201d said Parker, a Republican.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also advertised the bill\u2019s creation of an AI sandbox, overseen by the Department of Information Resources, the state\u2019s technology bureau, to provide a safe testing ground for new uses of AI, \u201cto see what works, to refine technologies, to gather essential feedback before these tools are more widely deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker outlined the legislation\u2019s new reporting and implementation requirements for agencies. Members of the public must be notified when they\u2019re interacting with AI tools, under the new law. It also creates a formal process through the state attorney general\u2019s office for members of the public to report cases of AI violating individual rights. But he also highlighted the potential for AI software to reduce government costs and \u201cdeliver more efficient services to Texans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers,\u201d Parker told the state Senate\u2019s Business and Commerce committee, \u201cTexas will be the nation\u2019s leader in AI, make no mistake about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Colin<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWritten by Colin Wood
\n\t\t\tColin Wood is the editor in chief of StateScoop and EdScoop. He’s reported on government information technology policy for more than a decade, on topics including cybersecurity, IT governance and artificial intelligence.
\n
\ncolin.wood@statescoop.com
\n
\nSignal: cwood.64\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday named eight members to a new AI advisory board tasked with guiding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24690,24691,6776,392,17002,24692,24693,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-40183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-ai-board","9":"tag-ai-oversight","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","11":"tag-greg-abbott","12":"tag-legislation","13":"tag-tan-parker","14":"tag-teaxs","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-texas-headlines","17":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}