Most broadly, we’re prone to see the methods that emerged final 12 months proceed, broaden, and start to be applied. For instance, following President Biden’s government order, varied US authorities businesses might define new greatest practices however empower AI firms to police themselves. And throughout the pond, firms and regulators will start to grapple with Europe’s AI Act and its risk-based strategy. It definitely gained’t be seamless, and there’s sure to be loads of dialogue about how these new legal guidelines and insurance policies really work in apply.
Whereas penning this piece, I took a while to replicate on how we received right here. I feel tales about applied sciences’ rise are worthy of reflective examination—they may also help us higher perceive what may occur subsequent. And as a reporter, I’ve seen patterns emerge in these tales over time—whether or not it is with blockchain, social media, self-driving automobiles, or every other fast-developing, world-changing innovation. The tech normally strikes a lot sooner than regulation, with lawmakers more and more challenged to remain in control with the know-how itself whereas devising new methods to craft sustainable, future-proof legal guidelines.
In desirous about the US particularly, I’m unsure what we’re experiencing thus far is unprecedented, although definitely the pace with which generative AI has launched into our lives has been stunning. Final 12 months, AI coverage was marked by Massive Tech energy strikes, congressional upskilling and bipartisanship (at the very least on this house!), geopolitical competitors, and speedy deployment of nascent applied sciences on the fly.
So what did we be taught? And what’s across the nook? There’s a lot to attempt to keep on high of by way of coverage, however I’ve damaged down what it’s essential to know into 4 takeaways.
1. The US isn’t planning on placing the screws to Massive Tech. However lawmakers do plan to interact the AI trade.
OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, first began his tour de Congress final Might, six months after the bombshell launch of ChatGPT. He met with lawmakers at personal dinners and testified in regards to the existential threats his personal know-how may pose to humanity. In loads of methods, this set the tone for the way we’ve been speaking about AI within the US, and it was adopted by Biden’s speech on AI, congressional AI perception boards to assist lawmakers stand up to hurry, and the discharge of extra giant language fashions. (Notably, the visitor listing for these AI perception boards skewed closely towards trade.)
As US lawmakers started to essentially tackle AI, it grew to become a uncommon (if small) space of bipartisanship on the Hill, with legislators from each events calling for extra guardrails across the tech. On the identical time, exercise on the state stage and within the courts elevated, primarily round person protections like age verification and content material moderation.
As I wrote within the story, “By means of this exercise, a US taste of AI coverage started to emerge: one which’s pleasant to the AI trade, with an emphasis on greatest practices, a reliance on totally different businesses to craft their very own guidelines, and a nuanced strategy of regulating every sector of the economic system otherwise.” The end result of all this was Biden’s government order on the finish of October, which outlined a distributed strategy to AI coverage, wherein totally different businesses craft their very own guidelines. It (maybe unsurprisingly) will rely fairly closely on buy-in from AI firms.
