A new executive order by the vice president aims to drag the US government into the age of chat
A White House Executive Order Calls for the Protection of Generative Artificial Intelligence and its Importance for the Future of the United States
Singh said that the move is the correct one because we can’t expect policies to be perfect at the beginning. The fact that this shows the importance ofArtificial Intelligence shows that it is a priority for the government.
A member of the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, Navrina Singh, said an executive order signals that the US is serious about generative artificial intelligence.
The executive order was in the making for months, reflecting White House concerns that technology could pose significant risks to national security, the economy, public health and privacy. Vice President Harris is scheduled to attend the major global summit on artificial intelligence in London next week.
The Biden administration first released an AI Bill of Rights outlining a set of principles developers of AI models should follow. There were agreements made between the White House and several artificial intelligence players.
Agencies are directed to address job displacement and produce a report on the impact of AI on the labor market. The White House also wants to encourage more workers to work in the AI ecosystem and ordered the launch of a National AI Research Resource to provide key information to students and AI researchers and access to technical assistance for small businesses. It directed the rapid hiring of people who were skilled in Artificial Intelligence.
The order has eight goals: to create new standards for AI safety and security, protect privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers, patients, and students, support workers, promote innovation and competition, advance US leadership in AI technologies, and ensure the responsible and effective government use of the technology.
To protect users’ privacy, the White House called on Congress to pass data privacy regulations. The order also seeks federal support for the development of “privacy-preserving” techniques and technologies.
The official said that they would not recall publically available models. “Existing models are still subject to the anti-discrimination rules already in place.”
The Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security have been directed by Congress to address the potential threat of artificial intelligence to infrastructure and the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and cybersecurity. Developers of large AI models like OpenAI ‘s GPT and Meta’s Llama 2 are required to share safety test results.
Several government agencies are tasked with creating standards to protect against the use of AI to engineer biological materials, establish best practices around content authentication, and build advanced cybersecurity programs.
Every six months or so, the capacity of the machine is doubling. So we need to double down on our efforts to make sure that we are staying ahead of the technology and not chasing the technology,” Zients said.
The order calls on the streamlining of visa processes so that immigrants who are skilled in AI can come to the U.S. to study and work on AI development.
Artificial intelligence can use your data to make social media even more addictive. That is not a good thing. Your data can be used to determine if a person of color wants to buy a home. That’s not ok, that’s what I said.
Biden – who will give remarks about the executive order on Monday — has said he sees the potential for AI in helping develop new drugs and cures for cancer. But the White House has also expressed concern about the drawbacks, such as “seniors being scammed by voice-cloning technology,” Zients said.
The Pentagon Production Act gave the White House some authority over companies’ new products, but there isn’t much enforcement power for them in general.
“At the end of the day, the companies can’t grade their own homework here,” Zients said. “We have set standards for the private sector on how we work on artificial intelligence, so we can make sure they live up to them.”
But Biden’s executive order will require the government to set new standards, tools and tests for red-teaming – and will require companies to notify the government and share the red-teaming results for the products that could pose major risks before releasing systems. The Korean-war era Defense Production Act gives the President the power to require companies to do so.
Tech companies currently do their own “red-teaming” of products – subjecting them to tests to find potential problems, like disinformation or racism. The major developers have already agreed with the White House on a number of red-teaming commitments before their systems are released.
The White House chief of staff told NPR that President Biden would give executive action on Monday in an attempt to establish oversight of the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence sector as well as set new standards for safety tests for the products.
Another part of the order requires companies that acquire, develop, or possess large-scale computing clusters, essential to training the most powerful AI systems, to report their activity to the federal government. This rule is intended to help the government understand which entities, including those from nations competing with the US, have strong AI capabilities.
The executive order orders the Department of Energy to look into how the production of artificial intelligence can contribute to attacks on critical infrastructure. The UK government included the possibility of advanced AI enabling biological and chemical attacks in a report last week on potential threats posed by the technology.
White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, who is chair of a newly formed White House AI Council to ensure compliance with the order, calls it “the strongest set of actions any government in the world has ever taken on AI safety, security, and trust.”
Divyansh Kaushik, an associate director at policy research group the Federation of American Scientists, who helped draft portions of the executive order, says those could be among the most influential pieces. He says talent is the most important part of the federal government.