First-Ever Executive Order on AI!

First-Ever Executive Order on AI!

Rohit Mahajan

As artificial intelligence is having a transformational impact on personal as well as business applications, President Joe Biden has issued the government's very first executive order on AI.

President Joe Biden issued a new executive order on artificial intelligence requiring new safety assessments, equity and civil rights guidance, and research on AI's impact on the labor market. As the ethical use of AI is a growing concern, this is the U.S. government’s first action of its kind.

Among growing concerns over the safe and ethical use of AI, law enforcement agencies have already said that they're ready to apply existing law to abuses of AI, and Congress has endeavored to learn more about the technology to craft new laws. However, the executive order could have a more immediate impact. Like all executive orders, it “has the force of law,” according to a senior administration official who spoke to the press.

The White House breaks the key components of the executive order into eight parts:

• Creating new safety and security standards for AI, including requiring some AI companies to share safety test results with the federal government, directing the Commerce Department to create guidance for AI watermarking, and creating a cybersecurity program that can make AI tools that help identify flaws in critical software.
• Protecting consumer privacy, including by creating guidelines that agencies can use to evaluate privacy techniques used in AI.
• Advancing equity and civil rights by providing guidance to landlords and federal contractors to help avoid AI algorithms furthering discrimination and creating best practices on the appropriate role of AI in the justice system, including when it's used in sentencing, risk assessments, and crime forecasting.
• Protecting consumers overall by directing the Department of Health and Human Services to create a program to evaluate potentially harmful AI-related healthcare practices and create resources on how educators can responsibly use AI tools.
• Supporting workers by producing a report on the potential labor market implications of AI and studying the ways the federal government could support workers affected by a disruption to the labor market.
• Promoting innovation and competition by expanding grants for AI research in areas such as climate change and modernizing the criteria for highly skilled immigrant workers with key expertise to stay in the U.S.
• Working with international partners to implement AI standards around the world.
• Developing guidance for federal agencies’ use and procurement of AI and speeding up the government’s hiring of workers skilled in the field.

The EO represents “the strongest set of actions any government in the world has ever taken on AI safety, security, and trust,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed said in a statement.

It builds on voluntary commitments the White House previously secured from leading AI companies and represents the first major binding government action on the technology.

“The President, several months ago, directed his team to pull every lever, and that’s what this order does: bringing the power of the federal government to bear in a wide range of areas to manage AI’s risk and harness its benefits,” the Reed added.

Biden’s executive order requires that large companies share safety test results with the U.S. government before the official release of AI systems. It also prioritizes the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s development of standards for AI “red-teaming,” or stress-testing the defenses and potential problems within systems. The Department of Commerce will develop standards for watermarking AI-generated content.

The order also addresses training data for large AI systems, and it lays out the need to evaluate how agencies collect and use commercially available data, including data purchased from data brokers, especially when that data involves personal identifiers.

How BigRio Helps to Support the Safe and Responsible Use of AI Solutions

At BigRio, we understand how AI, and particularly Generative AI (GAI), can help companies solve complex business challenges and streamline operations. However, we also recognize that organizations need to be able to trust this technology. Particularly when using GAI in applications like developing messaging content and other human interactions, we recognize and support the President’s efforts to ensure that it is used responsibly, fairly, and ethically.

This is why we are dedicated to providing solutions and supporting AI startups that focus on the ethical and responsible use of AI. We are committed to the practice of building AI solutions that have clear and transparent rules on how they process data and use it to provide your company with the insights you need to be more productive from an ethical, responsible, and legal point of view.

AI startups face numerous challenges when it comes to demonstrating their value proposition, not the least of which is responsible AI (RAI). This is particularly true when it comes to advanced AI solutions for pharma and healthcare – an area that BigRio focuses on. We have taken an award-winning and unique approach to incubating and facilitating startups that allow the R&D team and stakeholders to efficiently collaborate and craft the process to best suit actual ongoing needs and particular challenges of AI adoption in the healthcare field.

You can read much more about how AI is redefining business in my new book Quantum Care: A Deep Dive into AI for Health Delivery and Research. It’s a comprehensive look at how AI and machine learning are being used to improve healthcare delivery at every touchpoint, but it also discusses the impact of AI on all operations and businesses.

Rohit Mahajan is a Managing Partner with BigRio. He has particular expertise in the development and design of innovative solutions for clients in Healthcare, Financial Services, Retail, Automotive, Manufacturing, and other industry segments.

BigRio is a technology consulting firm empowering data to drive innovation and advanced AI. We specialize in cutting-edge Big Data, Machine Learning, and Custom Software strategy, analysis, architecture, and implementation solutions. If you would like to benefit from our expertise in these areas or if you have further questions on the content of this article, please do not hesitate to contact us.