The White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced on Monday that the Biden-Harris administration was able to take the most sweeping actions in 90 days to ‘harness the promise of AI’ and ‘place strong guardrails to protect against the risk”.
Three months prior, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to address the challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI). This directive aims to fortify AI’s safety and security, safeguard Americans’ privacy, advance equity and civil liberties, advocate for consumers and laborers, foster innovation and competition, bolster American global leadership, and more, as outlined in a fact sheet released by The White House.
“President Biden’s directive to us is move fast and fix things,” said Bruce Reed, Deputy Chief of Staff. “We will continue to move aggressively to keep pace with this technology.”
Within this three-month period, managing the risks associated with safety and security has emerged as a paramount focus for the presidential administration. In pursuit of this goal, the administration has established guidelines for AI developers to adhere to. Additionally, The White House fact sheet highlighted efforts to assess infrastructure-related challenges to preemptively mitigate potential risks and prevent foreign entities from leveraging the technology for nefarious purposes.
“Agencies reported that they have completed all of the 90 day actions tasked by the EO, including using the Defense Production Act to compel developers of the most powerful AI systems to report vital information and they have drafted a proposal to compel US cloud companies to report on providing competing computing power to foreign governments,” said Jean-Pierre.
To address these safety and security concerns, agencies have taken proactive measures, including invoking the Defense Production Act to compel AI developers to disclose crucial information. These developers are mandated to furnish data and insights concerning computing clusters utilized for AI system training, along with general particulars about these high-capacity systems.
Furthermore, the Department of Commerce has put forth a draft rule stipulating that U.S.-based cloud service providers, facilitating computing resources for AI training conducted by foreign entities, must report such activities.
The Department of Homeland Security has received risk assessments from nine distinct agencies, encompassing the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Health and Human Services, among others. These reports serve to bolster the U.S. government’s readiness by informing safety measures, including initiatives aimed at safeguarding critical infrastructure such as the electrical grid.
President Biden’s Executive Order has ushered in augmented investments in AI technologies, coupled with initiatives to cultivate a skilled workforce proficient in AI development through training programs and educational endeavors.
The administration launched a pilot of the National AI Research Resource, which is managed by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The White House fact sheet considers this ‘the first step toward a national infrastructure for delivering computing power, data, software, access to open and proprietary AI models, and other AI training resources to researchers and students’.
In order to find and train new AI professionals, Biden launched The AI and Tech Talent Task Force, along with investing in other worker talent developing programs such as Presidential Innovation Fellows, U.S. Digital Corps, and U.S. Digital Service, which will increase hiring for AI talent in 2024.
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Keep readingThey’re even focusing on K-12 through undergraduate levels to inspire students to later enter the AI industry. The administration launched the EducateAI initiative to fund inclusive AI educational opportunities.
The Executive Order is also funding the Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) with a focus in advancing AI, with an initial investment of $15 million and up to $160 million within the next decade.
The White House stated that the Executive Order established an AI Task Force at the Department of Health and Human Services to assist the development of AI technologies in the health industry.
”The Task Force will, for example, develop methods of evaluating AI-enabled tools and frameworks for AI’s use to advance drug development, bolster public health, and improve health care delivery,” the White House said. The Task Force has already been able to publish guiding principles regarding racial biases that have had a tendency to appear in the healthcare algorithms.
