Inside AI Policy

December 7, 2024

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By Rick Weber

A federal circuit court is citing FBI findings that TikTok’s gathering of data could assist China in developing and using artificial intelligence against U.S. national security interests, in upholding a bipartisan law enacted earlier this year to force the sale of the social media platform from its China-based parent company.

By Charlie Mitchell

President-elect Trump’s selection of technology investor David Sacks for artificial intelligence and crypto czar is earning positive early reviews from the AI policy community, amid questions on how the new White House office will function and its priorities in addressing the two discrete issues.

By Mariam Baksh

President-elect Trump praised a commitment to transparency in his choice to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, where the future of a controversial proposed rule to govern broker-dealers’ use of artificial intelligence remains in question.

By Mariam Baksh

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is working on ways to help the department mitigate the risk of bias from artificial intelligence applications, but its policies don’t capture the use of an array of surveillance tools employed by DHS agencies, according to the Government Accountability Office.

By Charlie Mitchell

The Federal Communications Commission should focus on encouraging the beneficial uses of artificial intelligence, the Consumer Technology Industry Association says, and pull back a proposed regulation specifically targeting uses of AI in robocalls.

By Charlie Mitchell

President-elect Trump is likely to revoke and replace President Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence, according to Paul Lekas of the Software & Information Industry Association, who expects the new administration to still find value in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s AI Safety Institute and other initiatives launched under the EO.

The Department of Energy’s solicitation of proposals for applying existing artificial intelligence algorithms to hasten the connection of energy sources to the power grid is cause for optimism regarding the technology’s broader impact on demands for electricity, according to the lead agency official.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center offers support for a Department of Justice proposed rulemaking on transfers of sensitive bulk data to countries of concern such as China, saying DOJ resisted industry pressure to scale back the proposal.

The Department of Energy has launched a program to test artificial intelligence models for identifying and correcting data and other gaps that slow the federal approval process for connections to the electricity grid, producing results that could shape implementation of pending legislative and regulatory reforms.

A bill that would require developers of artificial intelligence to disclose the use of copyright holders’ works in training their models would inappropriately threaten the tech industry, according to the Chamber of Progress.

Americans for Responsible Innovation is calling on House leadership to renew the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party in the new Congress, noting the panel has been instrumental in advancing the ENFORCE Act, legislation that is opposed by free-market enthusiasts and advocates of openness in artificial intelligence.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), likely to be the next chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, is backing an effort to halt the Transportation Security Administration’s rollout of facial recognition technology, as the controversial artificial intelligence application has also become the target of a high-profile GOP-led draft bill on the issue in his home state.

The Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees have approved artificial intelligence-related bills on patent reform and uses of AI in border control, respectively, for possible year-end floor action.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has approved by voice vote a bipartisan bill that requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop regulations on the use of artificial intelligence to speed the process for connecting power generators to the grid.

Technology industry groups say an “AI czar” being considered by President-elect Trump could boost government uses of the technology, propel private-sector efforts to develop cutting edge artificial intelligence tools and rev up U.S. moves to out-compete China in a vital sphere of national and economic security.

Veteran participants in artificial intelligence policy development are emphasizing the need for clear leadership and interagency coordination in the incoming administration, as President-elect Trump announces his picks for central roles on AI and considers appointing an “AI czar” to lead on the issue.

President-elect Trump’s decision to once again tap Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget is seen by private-sector policy leaders as a sign of continuity on artificial intelligence that began in Trump’s first term and marched in a similar direction through the Biden years.

Russell Vought, President-elect Trump’s pick to serve a second tour as OMB director, led the effort on providing landmark guidance to federal agencies on artificial intelligence when he previously held the job in Trump’s first administration, helping write directives on the government’s uses of AI and its approach to overseeing private sector deployment of the technology.

The tech company Mozilla weighs in with an extensive argument for open-source AI and federal engagement with smaller players in comments to the Department of Energy on the Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security, and Technology, or FASST, program.

Microsoft has announced a $4 million “largest of its kind” hacking competition aimed at identifying artificial intelligence and cloud vulnerabilities, with a major onsite event planned for 2025 at the company’s Redmond, WA campus.

A coalition of consumer and data privacy advocates is urging the Federal Communications Commission to finalize proposed rules governing the use of artificial intelligence in robocalls with greater clarity on customer consent.

A new report from the Center for Democracy and Technology highlights the widespread use of artificial intelligence in the hiring processes of companies while noting ways they might mitigate resulting discrimination against job candidates with disabilities.

The incoming Trump administration is expected to toughen export controls on China to limit artificial intelligence development, building on President Biden’s expansive use of export restrictions which in turn were an extension of tech trade policies spearheaded by the first Trump White House.

A new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development lists its highest priority actions for artificial intelligence including setting clear rules on liability to remove uncertainties and promote AI adoption.

The Software Information Industry Association is citing this week’s summit of AI safety institutes in San Francisco to urge Congress to quickly authorize the National Institute of Standards of Technology’s AI Safety Institute, warning the incoming Trump administration appears poised to scuttle the international effort for testing the security and safety of artificial intelligence technologies before they are deployed.

U.S. policymakers should adopt the European Union’s tack of considering the application of artificial intelligence for drug discovery a low-risk use case, according to a report from the Information Technology Innovation Foundation.

Plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta are accusing the company of attempting to redefine copyright infringement claims, and asking a federal court to force Meta to revise its objections to claims that its large-language artificial intelligence model, Llama, was trained on the copyrighted works of plaintiffs.

A federal district court has rejected as irrelevant a request by OpenAI for documents about the New York Times’ plans for using generative artificial intelligence, with the AI developer seeking to push back on the media company’s claims that OpenAI violated its copyright protections in the training of ChatGPT.

The Justice Department is asking a federal court to force Google to divest itself of its Chrome internet browser, rejecting the company’s claims that the emergence of artificial intelligence drives competition in a way that undermines the government’s antitrust allegations in the landmark case.

Class-action plaintiffs in a landmark copyright infringement lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta are accusing the tech giant of hiding how it uses training data for its generative artificial intelligence products behind claims of client-lawyer privilege, urging the court to force the company to provide the information which is central to the legal complaint.

A new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine finds that workforce impacts of artificial intelligence can be both positive and negative, by boosting productivity while making certain jobs obsolete, saying data sharing will be key to shaping these outcomes including retraining workers to take advantage of anticipated AI benefits.

Public comments are due within a few weeks on a Department of Energy plan for cutting the energy consumption of advanced technologies that support artificial intelligence, bringing to bear the department’s massive laboratory resources on an issue that has emerged as a major stumbling block for AI advancements.

Moody’s Ratings finds that artificial intelligence will “improve clinical and administrative efficiencies” in health care, helping to address labor shortages, while increasing cybersecurity risks and regulatory challenges for the sector.

The International Network of AI Safety Institutes summit this week in San Francisco has already produced a “joint mission statement” and $11 million in research funding on “synthetic content” risks, part of a U.S.-led process for developing consensus on methods for testing and researching safe and secure artificial intelligence.