However AI nerds could do not forget that precisely a 12 months in the past, on July 21, 2023, Biden was posing with seven high 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. Rather a lot can change in a 12 months!
The voluntary commitments have been hailed as much-needed steering for the AI sector, which was constructing highly effective know-how with few guardrails. Since then, eight extra firms have signed the commitments, and the White Home has issued an executive 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 assessments present that the know-how might pose a danger to nationwide safety.
US politics is extraordinarily polarized, and the nation is unlikely to cross AI regulation anytime quickly. So these commitments, together with some present legal guidelines resembling antitrust and shopper safety guidelines, are the very best 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 take a look at what’s occurred since. I requested the unique seven firms that signed the voluntary commitments to share as a lot as they may on what they’ve carried out 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 can read my story 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 firms can determine to alter their insurance policies anytime that fits them and face no actual penalties. And that’s the issue with nonbinding commitments: They’re simple to signal, and as simple 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 firms to do higher. In only one 12 months, tech firms have carried out some optimistic modifications, resembling AI red-teaming, watermarking, and funding in analysis on learn how to make AI techniques protected. Nevertheless, these types of commitments are opt-in solely, and which means firms can all the time simply choose again out once more. Which brings me to the subsequent massive query for this area: 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 totally different considerations about the usage of AI. One is perhaps extra involved about workforce results, and one other is perhaps extra involved about bias and discrimination,” says Nonnecke. “It’s clear that it’s a bipartisan difficulty that there should be some guardrails and oversight of AI improvement in the USA,” she provides.
Trump isn’t any stranger to AI. Whereas in workplace, he signed an executive 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 guidance on responsible AI. If he returns to workplace, he’s reportedly planning to scratch Biden’s government order and put in place his personal AI executive 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 cross binding AI rules. It’s no shock, then, that Silicon Valley’s billionaires have backed Trump.
