The Executive Order establishes standards for AI safety, protects Americans’ privacy, and more.
President Biden this morning introduced an Executive Order (EO) aimed at managing the risks associated with AI.
According to the White House, this EO “establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world, and more.”
The Executive Order outlined several standards and best practices to be created to ensure safety and security, including:
Requiring developers of AI systems to share safety test results with the government
Establishing standards, tools, and tests to ensure safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems
Making new standards for biological synthesis screening to prevent AI from being used to create dangerous biological materials
Creating guidance and best practices for detecting AI-generated content
Setting up a security program to develop tools that find and fix vulnerabilities using AI
Developing a National Security Memorandum to guide the direction of further actions on AI and security
In the EO, President Biden went on to further address how to protect the privacy of American citizens, as AI makes it much easier to extract and exploit personal data. He is calling on Congress to pass data privacy legislation that addresses these concerns. He also wants there to be more of a focus on researching privacy-preserving technologies. He has established and is funding a Research Coordination Network to facilitate this, and has directed the National Science Foundation to work closely with the network.
The EO also says the White House will evaluate how government agencies collect and use information so that it can strengthen its privacy guidance for those agencies.
Another component of the initiative is to advance equity and civil rights through AI. “Irresponsible uses of AI can lead to and deepen discrimination, bias, and other abuses in justice, healthcare, and housing,” the EO states.
