USA- Executive Order, “Safe, Secure and Trustworthy AI

On October 30th 2023 the Biden Administration issued an Executive Order on Safe, Secure and trustworthy  development and use of AI.

The purpose of this Executive Order, 14110, is to establish a new standard for AI safety. The following order aims to strike a balance between innovation and development as well as the protection of the United States people. 

Section 2 of the order governs the development and use of AI in accordance with 8 guiding principles. These are:

  1. Artificial Intelligence must be safe and secure. This requires robust and reliable evaluations of AI systems. This also requires addressing AI systems with the most pressing security risk. Must undertake testing and evaluations to ensure AI systems function as intended and are complaint with applicable federal laws. The Biden Administration will develop effective labelling and content provenance mechanisms to help users determine which content is AI generated.
  2. Promoting responsible innovation, competition, and collaboration will allow the United States to lead in AI and unlock the technology’s potential to solve some of society’s most difficult challenges. This requires investment in educational resources.
  3. The responsible development and use of AI require a commitment to supporting American workers. This is to ensure the development of AI does not undermine the work-force. The Biden Administration will seek to adapt job training and education to support a diverse workforce and help provide access to opportunities that AI creates.
  4. Artificial Intelligence policies must be consistent with my Administration’s dedication to advancing equity and civil rights. The Administration ensures that the use of AI does not disadvantage those who are already too often denied equal opportunity and justice.
  5. The interests of Americans who increasingly use, interact with, or purchase AI and AI-enabled products in their daily lives must be protected. The Federal Government will enforce existing consumer protection laws and principles and enact appropriate safeguards against fraud, unintended bias, discrimination, infringements on privacy, and other harms from AI.
  6. Americans’ privacy and civil liberties must be protected as AI continues advancing. The Federal Government will ensure that the collection, use, and retention of data is lawful, is secure, and mitigates privacy and confidentiality risks. Agencies shall use available policy and technical tools.
  7. It is important to manage the risks from the Federal Government’s own use of AI and increase its internal capacity to regulate, govern, and support responsible use of AI to deliver better results for Americans.
  8. The Federal Government should lead the way to global societal, economic, and technological progress.

Section 4 – Ensuring the safety and security of AI technology

Section 4.1 notes that within 270 days of the executive order the Secretary of commerce alongside .. must establish guidelines with the aim of promoting industry standards for safe AI systems. This includes:

(A) developing a companion resource to the AI Risk Management Framework, NIST AI 100-1, for generative AI;

(B) developing a companion resource to the Secure Software Development Framework to incorporate secure development practices for
generative AI and for dual-use foundation models; and

(C) launching an initiative to create guidance and benchmarks for evaluating and auditing AI capabilities, with a focus on capabilities through which AI could cause harm, such as in the areas of cybersecurity and biosecurity.

(ii) Establish appropriate guidelines (except for AI used as a component of a national security system), including appropriate procedures
and processes, to enable developers of AI, especially of dual-use foundation models, to conduct AI red-teaming tests to enable deployment of safe, secure, and trustworthy systems.

Section 4.2 outlines that within 90 days of the order any companies developing dual-use foundation models to provide the Government with information regarding the following:

  1. Any ongoing/planned activities relating to the training, development or production of dual-use foundation models.
  2. Ownership and possession of the model weights for dual-use foundation models.
  3. Results for any developed dual-use foundation model performance

Section 4.6 governs the soliciting input on Dual-Use foundation models with widely available model weights. In order to address the risks and benefits, within 270 days of this executive order the Secretary of Commerce shall:

  1. Solicit input from the private sector through a public consultation process on potential risks and benefits and related to models.

Based on the input from this consultation paper they must submit a report to the president on the risks and benefits of these models.

Section 5 –  Promoting Innovation

Section 5.2 outlines the steps the Director of the NFS must take in order to promote innovation. The steps are as follows:

  1. Within 90 days of this order they must launch a pilot program implementing the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR), consistent with past recommendations of the NAIRR Task Force. The program shall pursue the infrastructure, governance mechanisms, and user interfaces to pilot an initial integration of distributed computational, data, model, and training resources to be made available to the research community in support of AI-related research and development.
  2. Within 150 days of the date of this order, fund and launch at least one NSF Regional Innovation Engine that prioritizes AI-related work, such as AI-related research, societal, or workforce needs.
  3. Within 540 days of the date of this order, establish at least four new National AI Research Institutes, in addition to the 25 currently funded as of the date of this order

This chapter then outlines additional measures which can be made to enhance innovation. Some of these are provided below.

Within 120 days of this order the Director of NSF with Secretary of Energy establish a pilot program to enhance existing successful training programs for scientists, with the goal of training 500 new researchers by 2025 capable of meeting the rising demand for AI talent.

Within 180 days of the date of this order, to understand AI’s implications for scientific research, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology shall submit to the President and make publicly available a report on the potential role of AI

Section 6 – Supporting Workers

Section 6 governs the support for workers in ensuring they are not displaced by the development of AI. Within 180 days of the order,  the Chairman of the council of Economic advisors must prepare a report to the President which analyses the ability of agencies to support workers displaced by the adoption of AI. This section then moves on to outline the requirements in which this report must meet. One example being identifying options to strengthen support for workers displaced by AI.

Section 12 – Implementation

Section 12 governs the implementation. This section established the Executive office of the President and the White House AI council. The function of the White House AI Council is to coordinate the activities of agencies across the Federal Government.