Can Artificial Intelligence Survive Real Oversight?

There are big things coming in the world of artificial intelligence. Not better self-driving cars or android personal assistants or even our robot overlords. The next big thing in AI will be government oversight and it is happening now.

The U.S. Commerce Department sent out a media release in late October marking the one-year anniversary of the Biden Administration’s AI executive order on the safe, secure and trustworthy development of artificial intelligence. But the document wasn’t merely a celebratory letter to be read before handing out pieces of cake. It was a reminder to the high-tech industries investing in and developing AI that Big Brother is keeping on eye on their progress.

While there hasn’t been much written about government initiatives to regulate AI nor has there been any action in either house of Congress to date, there are several efforts underway to create guardrails for the development and implementation of artificial intelligence systems.

The Commerce release highlighted some of those efforts, including use of the Defense Production Act – a federal law originally passed in 1950 with the onset of the Korean War that grants the executive branch powers to ensure the nation’s defense by expanding and expediting the supply of materials and services from the domestic industrial base – to compel AI developers to report specific information about th4eir work, including safety test results, to the U.S. government.

The release also focused on development of guidance and tools for managing AI risk, the issuance of the first-ever National Security Memorandum on AI, work on balancing AI and intellectual property rights and the creation of a global network of AI Safety Institutes among others.

All of this means the U.S. government, along with governments around the world, learned an important lesson from the wild west free-for-all that is the cryptocurrency sector. Rather than waiting to shut the barn doors after the virtual horses have escaped, it appears governments are trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to artificial intelligence.

And the U.S. government is serious about the task ahead.

In the October release, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo laid out the government’s perspective on AI regulation.

“We want the rules of the road on AI to be underpinned by safety, security and trust” and said the Administration is “pulling every lever” to maintain proper oversight of the technology as it develops.

The cornerstone of the global effort to regulate AI is the creation of the AI Safety Network, which is set to kick off at a summit in Paris in February of next year.

The question, of course, is how will the AI industry and all the multi-national corporations that have invested millions of dollars in developing the technology react to a concerted government effort to enforce a regulatory regime over their efforts. While some will complain that the heavy hand of government oversight will slow growth and development, it is clear that artificial intelligence is a revolutionary technological achievement on the level of the printing press, the incandescent light bulb and the personal computer that is unlikely to be sidetracked.

While global governments should take steps to create a regulatory framework for artificial intelligence as they would for any other industry, the best they can hope for is not to stop AI, but to contain it.