Most broadly, we’re prone to see the methods that emerged final yr proceed, develop, and start to be applied. For instance, following President Biden’s government order, numerous US authorities businesses could define new finest 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 method. It definitely received’t be seamless, and there’s certain to be a variety of dialogue about how these new legal guidelines and insurance policies really work in observe.
Whereas penning this piece, I took a while to replicate on how we acquired right here. I feel tales about applied sciences’ rise are worthy of reflective examination—they can assist 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 vehicles, or every other fast-developing, world-changing innovation. The tech normally strikes a lot quicker than regulation, with lawmakers more and more challenged to remain on top of things with the expertise itself whereas devising new methods to craft sustainable, future-proof legal guidelines.
In fascinated with the US particularly, I’m unsure what we’re experiencing thus far is unprecedented, although definitely the velocity with which generative AI has launched into our lives has been shocking. Final yr, AI coverage was marked by Huge Tech energy strikes, congressional upskilling and bipartisanship (no less than on this house!), geopolitical competitors, and speedy deployment of nascent applied sciences on the fly.
So what did we study? 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 good to know into 4 takeaways.
1. The US isn’t planning on placing the screws to Huge Tech. However lawmakers do plan to interact the AI trade.
OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, first began his tour de Congress final Could, six months after the bombshell launch of ChatGPT. He met with lawmakers at personal dinners and testified concerning the existential threats his personal expertise might pose to humanity. In a variety 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 rise up to hurry, and the discharge of extra massive language fashions. (Notably, the visitor checklist for these AI perception boards skewed closely towards trade.)
As US lawmakers started to actually 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 similar 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 finest practices, a reliance on completely different businesses to craft their very own guidelines, and a nuanced method of regulating every sector of the financial system otherwise.” The end result of all this was Biden’s government order on the finish of October, which outlined a distributed method to AI coverage, during which completely different businesses craft their very own guidelines. It (maybe unsurprisingly) will rely fairly closely on buy-in from AI firms.
