US Government Addresses AI Uncertainty

In recent weeks, the White House has taken some bigger steps to address the potential risks and rewards of AI. Here are a few of things that they’ve got in the works:

• An AI Bill of Rights — For now we only have a blueprint, but it’s better than nothing. In the approximately 2000-word document, it outlines a short set of guidelines that every American should be entitled to such as the right to data privacy and security when dealing with AI, protection from faulty or unsafe AI, and the ability to opt-out of experiences that employ AI. 

• Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings — It seems the White House is no stranger to meetings with tech giants these days, but last week was especially booked up. Vice President Kamala Harris and half a dozen representatives from across the administration's tech, policy, and national security organizations met with some of the biggest players currently in the AI sector including the CEOs of Open AI, Microsoft and Google to discuss how best to mitigate the current and potential risk of AI.

• Helpful Hackers — The government is partnering with AI Village at this year’s DEF CON 31 hacker convention to host the largest-ever, public red team event where digital experts will “attack” AI platforms in an attempt to find security vulnerabilities and bugs.

• Training — White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that President Biden has been "extensively briefed" on ChatGPT and had experimented a bit with the bot. Anyone else dying to know what was his first prompt??

• R&D — The National Science Foundation is allocating a budget of $140M to launch seven new National AI Research Institutes in support of developing fair, secure, and trustworthy AI systems.
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• ‍Agency-Specific Efforts — The top dogs aren’t the only ones with their focus on AI. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating surveillance and data security practices, the Department of Education is finalizing their recommendations on AI in education, and the Department of Health and Human Services is proposing a rule against discriminatory clinical algorithms.