Vice President Harris watches as President Biden signs an executive order on artificial intelligence on October 30. On Thursday, the Biden administration released new rules for how government agencies can implement AI.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
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Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Vice President Harris watches as President Biden signs an executive order on artificial intelligence on October 30. On Thursday, the Biden administration released new rules for how government agencies can implement AI.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
The Biden administration announced new guidance to federal agencies on how they can and cannot use artificial intelligence, in a memo released by the Office of Management and Budget.
This is an important step in trying to ensure safe use of AIwhat are the private companies and other countries also struggling with.
A draft of the guidelines was released last fall, ahead of Vice President Harris’ trip to the first global AI summit in the United Kingdom. The draft was then open for public comment before being released in its final form on Thursday.
Harris said the guidance was “binding” and stressed the need for guidelines that prioritize the public interest on a global scale.
“President Biden and I intend for these domestic policies to serve as a model for global action,” Harris said in a call with reporters Wednesday. “We will continue to call on all nations to follow our lead and put the public interest first when it comes to the use of AI by governments.”
The guidance for agencies attempts to strike a balance between managing artificial intelligence risks and encouraging innovation.
It also requires each agency to appoint a chief artificial intelligence officer, a leadership position who will oversee AI implementation. And it describes how the government is trying to increase the AI-focused workforce, including hiring at least 100 professionals in the field by this summer.
“The public deserves confidence that the federal government will use technology responsibly,” said Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young.
Agencies have until December 1 to implement AI protection measures
The guidance for agencies states that any AI technology they use must have appropriate safeguards in place by December 1. If they cannot provide these guarantees, they must stop using the technology, unless they can prove that its use is necessary for the right purpose. function of the agency.
Required safeguards include evaluating, testing and monitoring the impacts of AI technology – but the details of the process are still unclear in these guidelines.
Alex Reeve Givens, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, told NPR she still has questions about testing requirements and who in government has the expertise to give the green light for technology.
“I view this as the first step. What will come next are very detailed practice guides and expectations on what an effective audit looks like, for example,” Reeve Givens said. “There is still a lot of work to be done.”
One of the next steps Reeve Givens is considering is the guidance the administration will issue on the government procurement process and the requirements that will be in place for companies whose AI technology the government wants to purchase.
“This is really the inflection point where many decisions and values can be made and many tests can be done before the government spends money on the system,” she said.
Transparency of agencies will allow better control
Reeve Givens said the part of the OMB guidance on transparency was particularly noteworthy.
Under the new guidelines, agencies are required to share an inventory online annually of how they use AI and the associated risks, and this inventory must be accessible. This provision is “essential,” said Reeve Givens.
“We can then ask questions about, ‘What tests did you do? What did that look like?’ There may be more attention and more public scrutiny on these use cases, but this gives us the opportunity to start that public conversation,” she said.
The Department of Defense and intelligence agencies, however, are exempt from sharing their use of AI.
Guidance could be a ‘catalyst’ for increased use of AI
OMB guidance also aims to encourage innovation through AI. Ifeoma Ajunwa, a law professor at Emory University, told NPR that these guidelines send a signal to agencies that it’s OK to consider using AI technology.
“I think this will be a catalyst for agencies that may have had some apprehension or reservations about using AI technologies,” she said.
“I don’t want agencies to take this as carte blanche to use AI technologies in all cases,” Ajunwa added. “But I want them to see this as an opening, as a catalyst for them to use it when it’s appropriate and when safety safeguards have been put in place.”
Several government agencies already use artificial intelligence, but the Biden administration’s memo outlines other ways the technology could have an impact — from predicting extreme weather events to tracking the spread of disease and consumption of food. ‘opioids.
