Tell Gov. Healey: OpenAI Contract Needs to Be Open
Last Friday, Governor Healey committed Massachusetts to a three-year, multimillion-dollar contract with OpenAI, a company that has been in the news recently for collaborating with ICE, to deploy its AI tool for the Executive Branch’s 40,000 employees.
Healey did this upon the recommendation of the Commonwealth’s industry insider-dominated “AI Strategic Task Force,” but without consulting state workers.
As Beacon Hill works on passing new data privacy protections, Massachusetts residents should also be concerned about how Healey’s new partnership would handle sensitive data. We can’t know because the contract has not been released.
Workers, civil rights advocates, and consumer advocates need to be at the table to decide how new technologies will be embraced, not just those who will profit from them.
Here’s what you can do:
Contact the Governor's office. Call (617) 725-4005 or use this email tool. Ask for the release of the full procurement documents and the data processing agreement, and ask why workers, consumer advocates, and civil rights advocates were excluded from this decision.
Contact your State Representative and Senator. Email your state legislators to ask whether the Joint Committee on Advanced IT plans to hold hearings on this contract.