However AI nerds could 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 probably the most prescriptive guidelines focused on the AI sector at the moment. Rather a lot can change in a yr!
The voluntary commitments had been hailed as much-needed steerage for the AI sector, which was constructing highly effective expertise 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 new AI fashions with the US authorities if the exams present that the expertise may pose a danger to nationwide safety.
US politics is extraordinarily polarized, and the nation is unlikely to go AI regulation anytime quickly. So these commitments, together with some present legal guidelines equivalent to antitrust and shopper safety guidelines, are the perfect the US has by way of defending individuals 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 may on what they’ve finished to adjust to them, cross-checked their responses with a handful of exterior specialists, and tried my greatest to supply a way of how a lot progress has been made. You’ll be able to 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 resolve 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 growth and inserting public strain on corporations to do higher. In only one yr, tech corporations have applied some optimistic adjustments, equivalent to AI red-teaming, watermarking, and funding in analysis on easy methods to make AI programs secure. Nonetheless, these types of commitments are opt-in solely, and which means corporations can all the time simply choose again out once more. Which brings me to the subsequent massive query for this discipline: The place will Biden’s successor take US AI coverage?
The talk 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.
“Typically the events have totally different issues about the usage of AI. One could be extra involved about workforce results, and one other could be extra involved about bias and discrimination,” says Nonnecke. “It’s clear that it’s a bipartisan situation that there have to be some guardrails and oversight of AI growth in the USA,” 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 steerage 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 Mission” to spice up navy AI. In the meantime, Biden retains calling for Congress to go binding AI rules. It’s no shock, then, that Silicon Valley’s billionaires have backed Trump.
