With the White House's new Executive Order on AI expected any day now and Senator Schumer's AI Insight Forum kicking off next week, we're reading all about AI this week.
Zero Trust AI Governance Framework | Accountable Tech
Rejecting the premise of self-regulation, this proposed regulatory framework from Accountable Tech, AI Now, and EPIC holds nothing back ("AI’s trajectory is being dictated by a toxic arms race amongst a handful of unaccountable Big Tech companies – surveillance giants who serve as the modern gatekeepers of information, communications, and commerce.") To counter the dangers of runaway tech giants, this framework emphasizes three principles: 1) focus on measures that can be implemented immediately; 2) avoid overly complex processes and identify practices that should be prohibited 3) place the burden on companies to prove their systems are not harmful.
Proposing the CASC: A Comprehensive and Distributed Approach to AI Regulation | Tech Policy Press
This Brookings paper outlines an AI regulatory regime that would take an application-specific approach. Stressing that not all algorithms will meet the bar for regulation, the approach assigns regulatory responsibilities to existing agencies, building upon their existing domain expertise. Although acknowledging that "the best idea is to systematically update each of our civil rights and consumer protection laws to confront the digital and algorithmic age … the Critical Algorithmic Systems Classification approach may function as a workable and effective alternative."
How Worried Should You Be about AI Disrupting Elections? | The Economist
While acknowledging AI's potential to increase the quantity and quality of election misinformation, as well as the possibility of personalized propaganda, The Economist pushes back on the idea that upcoming elections will be marked by runaway deepfakes: "before the technological advances of the past two years, people were quite capable of transmitting all manner of destructive and terrible ideas to one another." (Reminder that public comments to the FEC on the use AI-generated content are due Oct 16.)
FRP Releases Generative AI Internal Policy Checklist | Future of Privacy Forum
Recalling McKinsey's recent data on the low number of corporations employing AI guidelines, this new Internal Policy Checklist from the Future of Privacy Forum aims to "help revise their internal policies and procedures to ensure that employees are using generative AI in a way that mitigates data, security, and privacy risks, respects intellectual property rights, and preserves consumer trust."
August 2023 Tech Policy Roundup | Tech Policy Press
Finally, Tech Policy Press does an excellent (and thorough) monthly write up of policy developments in the AI and privacy space. This one covers August – hardly a slow news month, even with Congress on recess!