However AI nerds might keep in mind that precisely a yr in the past, on July 21, 2023, Biden was posing with seven prime tech executives on the White Home. He’d simply negotiated a deal the place they agreed to eight of essentially the most prescriptive guidelines focused on the AI sector at the moment. Quite a bit can change in a yr!
The voluntary commitments had been hailed as much-needed steering for the AI sector, which was constructing highly effective know-how with few guardrails. Since then, eight extra corporations have signed the commitments, and the White Home has issued an government order that expands upon them—for instance, with a requirement that builders share security check outcomes for brand spanking new AI fashions with the US authorities if the checks present that the know-how might pose a danger to nationwide safety.
US politics is extraordinarily polarized, and the nation is unlikely to move AI regulation anytime quickly. So these commitments, together with some current legal guidelines corresponding to antitrust and shopper safety guidelines, are the most effective the US has when it comes to defending folks from AI harms. To mark the one-year anniversary of the voluntary commitments, I made a decision to have a look at what’s occurred since. I requested the unique seven corporations that signed the voluntary commitments to share as a lot as they might on what they’ve executed to adjust to them, cross-checked their responses with a handful of exterior specialists, and tried my finest to offer a way of how a lot progress has been made. You may learn my story right here.
Silicon Valley hates being regulated and argues that it hinders innovation. Proper now, the US is counting on the tech sector’s goodwill to guard its shoppers from hurt, however these corporations can determine to vary their insurance policies anytime that fits them and face no actual penalties. And that’s the issue with nonbinding commitments: They’re straightforward to signal, and as straightforward to overlook.
That’s to not say they don’t have any worth. They are often helpful in creating norms round AI improvement and inserting public strain on corporations to do higher. In only one yr, tech corporations have applied some optimistic modifications, corresponding to AI red-teaming, watermarking, and funding in analysis on how you can make AI techniques protected. Nevertheless, these types of commitments are opt-in solely, and which means corporations can at all times simply choose again out once more. Which brings me to the following huge query for this subject: The place will Biden’s successor take US AI coverage?
The controversy round AI regulation is unlikely to go away if Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November, says Brandie Nonnecke, the director of the CITRIS Coverage Lab at UC Berkeley.
“Generally the events have completely different considerations about using AI. One is likely to be extra involved about workforce results, and one other is likely to be extra involved about bias and discrimination,” says Nonnecke. “It’s clear that it’s a bipartisan concern that there must be some guardrails and oversight of AI improvement in the US,” she provides.
Trump is not any stranger to AI. Whereas in workplace, he signed an government order calling for extra funding in AI analysis and asking the federal authorities to make use of extra AI, coordinated by a brand new Nationwide AI Initiative Workplace. He additionally issued early steering on accountable AI. If he returns to workplace, he’s reportedly planning to scratch Biden’s government order and put in place his personal AI government order that reduces AI regulation and units up a “Manhattan Venture” to spice up navy AI. In the meantime, Biden retains calling for Congress to move binding AI laws. It’s no shock, then, that Silicon Valley’s billionaires have backed Trump.
