John Bailey of the American Enterprise Institute offers a positive assessment of the U.S. Senate’s new artificial intelligence plan.
The roadmap strikes a balance between promoting AI innovation and acknowledging emerging risks. Instead of endorsing research pauses, expansive new regulatory schemes, or complex licensing systems, the overarching guidance is to have relevant congressional committees develop legislation to “support AI advancements and minimize potential risks from AI.”
The roadmap appears to reflect a genuine bipartisan compromise. By incorporating diverse perspectives and fostering collaboration across party lines, the guidance aims to create a more comprehensive, effective, and durable framework for AI governance.
The roadmap acknowledges the importance of proactively mitigating potential risks associated with AI systems. It takes a measured approach to AI regulation by supporting AI safety systems and risk-based frameworks. It seeks to establish a solid foundation for AI safety by calling for increased funding for AI efforts at National Institute of Standards and Technology, establishing AI testing and evaluation infrastructure, and committing additional funding to the US AI Safety Institute. The endorsement of voluntary commercial AI auditing standards is a step in the right direction, as it encourages industry collaboration in ensuring AI safety.
The working group emphasizes the need for additional worker re-skilling, along with long-overdue improvements to the US immigration system for highly skilled STEM workers. Attracting skilled international talent is essential, but prioritizing the cultivation of domestic STEM talent is equally important. Just as relying on foreign manufacturing creates supply-chain and national-security risks, so too does relying on foreign production of STEM talent without bolstering our domestic supply. …
… As AI technologies rapidly advance, there are alarming instances of AI being used to generate child sexual abuse material and deepfakes created by teenagers of their peers. The roadmap rightly calls for urgent reforms to safeguard children.
