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- Texas Takes Lead on AI Regulation + Smart Cities Update | AITX
Texas Takes Lead on AI Regulation + Smart Cities Update | AITX
New AI Laws, Transit Tech, and Community Updates
AITX Team
January 03, 2025
Hello everyone! AITX Team here with more updates this week.
If you鈥檙e new here, welcome! 馃憢 At AITX, we aim to:
Connect you with like-minded peers passionate about AI.
Provide a space for sharing ideas and receiving feedback on AI projects you鈥檙e building.
Share helpful tools and invaluable resources.
Before we jump into the regular news, a few housekeeping items:
January AITX Meetups:
Our upcoming meetups:
Austin Meetup: January 28, 2025 | sign up here!
To stay in the loop on all our monthly meetups and other community organized events, subscribe to our AITX calendar here.
Check out our Community Directory:
We recently started a community directory where you can fill out your profile and find other members of the AITX community.
If you haven鈥檛 filled out your profile yet, please follow the link HERE and submit your information.
In this week鈥檚 edition you鈥檙e getting:
5 Upcoming Events
3 AI Community Stories
1 Community Highlight
So let鈥檚 jump in!
UPCOMING EVENTS
When: Wednesday, January 8, 2025 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St 路 Austin, TX
What: Supercharging Customer Service with AI: Boost Efficiency & Personalization: A Playbook for Solopreneurs, Marketers and Businesses.
When: Wednesday, January 15, 2025 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM CST
Where: Oracle 2300 Oracle Wy 路 Austin, TX
What: Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and ML, food/drink, networking with speakers and fellow developers.
When: Friday, December 27, 2024 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM CST
Where: Austin Austin 路 Austin, TX
What: Join a friendly Tech dinner group in Austin TX for conversations about Tech AI & Startups and meet new friends every Wednesday and Friday.
When: Thursday, January 9, 2025 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St, 16th Floor 路 Austin, TX
What: 鈥媁elcome to Hack AI, a monthly mini-hack session for developers all over the Austin area to build cool stuff related to AI. We discuss Agents, Voice AI, Large Language Models, Computer Vision, and more!
When: Thursday, January 9, 2025 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM CST
Where: 701 Brazos St 701 Brazos St 路 Austin, TX
What: Join us for a social hour and mixer at the first Artists and the Age of AI Meetup of 2025! Enjoy complimentary refreshments and drinks while connecting with other artists, creatives, and technologists working in the arts, tech, and AI space.
COMMUNITY STORIES
Texas has introduced the Responsible AI Governance Act, aimed at regulating high-risk AI systems and protecting consumers from algorithmic discrimination.
Why it matters: This comprehensive legislation could become a blueprint for AI regulation across the United States.
Need-to-know:
Law targets AI systems affecting critical decisions in education, healthcare, and employment
Requires developers to produce risk reports and maintain detailed data records
Mandates transparency in AI-driven decisions and prompt discrimination risk reporting
Bans behavior manipulation, social scoring, and unauthorized biometric data collection
Learn more here.
Texas House Bill 1709 adds significant consumer protection measures, including mandatory AI disclosure requirements and safeguards against algorithmic bias.
Why it matters: The expanded bill shows Texas legislators taking a balanced approach between innovation and public safety.
Need-to-know:
Companies must disclose when they use AI systems
Creates "AI Regulatory Sandbox Program" for testing new technologies
Includes protections against AI censorship and content moderation bias
Focuses on education and workforce training for AI economy
Learn more here.
Transit agencies across major U.S. cities are partnering with Hayden AI to use bus-mounted cameras that automatically detect and fine vehicles blocking bus lanes.
Why it matters: This AI application aims to improve public transit efficiency and accessibility while demonstrating practical uses of automated enforcement.
Need-to-know:
System uses dual cameras to capture violations and license plates
New York reports 5% faster buses and 20% fewer collisions since implementation
Program expanding to include double parking and bus stop violations
Technology includes privacy features like selective recording and face-blurring options
Learn more here.
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COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT
This week we are highlighting Orlando (orlie) Kalossakas.
Orlando is the founder of Toolhouse.
Toolhouse is a cloud platform that simplifies building and deploying AI applications with LLMs by providing a low-latency infrastructure, a marketplace of prebuilt tools, and a universal SDK that works with any major AI framework.
Developers can install tools like code execution or semantic search with one click, saving time on integrations.
Orlie has been an OG of AITX and we are happy to have him as a member of this community.
Connect with Orlando on LinkedIn here.
That鈥檚 all for now, folks!
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