The New Executive Order of Joe Biden aims to drag the US government into the age of chat
The White House’s View on Artificial Intelligence and the Government’s Responsibility to Protect Privacy and National Security: Congress passed an Executive Order
“It’s the right move for right now because we can’t expect policies to be perfect at the onset while legislation is still discussed,” Singh said. “I do believe that this really shows AI is a top priority for government.”
The federal government’s workforce has to be prepared for all the changes that will come with the order. Many agencies already have personnel who are designated as leaders on artificial intelligence, a senior White House official told reporters. They were involved in the creation of the executive order.
The White House made an executive order that reflected their concern that technology could pose risks to national security, economy and public health. Vice President Harris will be in London for the global summit on artificial intelligence next week.
The order requires reporting on companies that are developing powerful artificial intelligence. Biden will use the Defense Production Act, a law that can compel businesses to take actions in the interest of national security, to require the makers of large AI models to report key information to the government, including when they are training a new model and what cybersecurity protections they have.
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 instructed the hiring of talent for the government.
The order wants to create new standards for artificial intelligence safety and security, protect privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for patients, support workers, promote innovation and competition, and ensure the responsible and effective use of artificial intelligence.
The White House called on Congress to pass data privacy regulations. The order wants the federal government to help develop privacy-preserving techniques and technologies.
The official said the models out there are not going to be recalled. “Existing models are still subject to the anti-discrimination rules already in place.”
An Implication of the Defense Production Act of the Korean War for Artificial Intelligence, Privacy, and Security: Implementing Red-Teaming Exercises to Identify Hackers and Malware
That will include disclosing results of so-called red teaming exercises, intended to reveal vulnerabilities in AI models, such as those that can be used to evade controls that prevent malicious use cases such as generating malware. The goal is to be sure that the potential threats that artificial intelligence can pose are monitored.
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.
The capacity of artificial intelligence is doubling every six months. 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 is meant to give immigrants who are skilled in the field of artificial intelligence the chance to study in the U.S.
You can use data to make social media more addicting for you and your kids. That is not a good thing. If you have data about a person of color, your data could be used to prevent them from buying a home. That’s unacceptable,” Zients said.
The executive order will be given by Biden, who said that he sees the potential for artificial intelligence to help with cancer research. But the White House has also expressed concern about the drawbacks, such as “seniors being scammed by voice-cloning technology,” Zients said.
The Defense Production Act allows the White House to have authority over companies’ new products, but it doesn’t give congress the power to enforce it.
“At the end of the day, the companies can’t grade their own homework here,” Zients said. “So we’ve set the new standards on how we work with the private sector on AI, and those are standards that we’re going to make sure the private companies live up to.”
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 power to make companies do it is derived from the Defense Production Act of the Korean War, a law that expands the authority of the president.
Tech companies put their products through tests to find potential problems, like disinformation or racism. Major developers have agreed to red-team their systems before releasing them, thanks to the White House.
White House chief of staff Jeff Zarents said that the president will take sweeping executive action to try to establish oversight of the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence sector, set new standards for safety tests for the products and create a federal pressure test for major systems.
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. The rule is intended to help the government understand which entities, including those competing with the US, possess strong artificial intelligence capabilities.
The Department of Energy was ordered to examine how artificial intelligence outputs can contribute to biological or chemical attacks or cyber attacks on critical infrastructure. The UK government included the possibility of using advanced Artificial Intelligence to carry out a biological or chemical attack.
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 that talent is the biggest problem in the federal government.
