Within the span of 24 hours, the White House and the G7 countries have announced mandates to regulate A.I. These will cover a wide spectrum, ranging from commercial use of artificial intelligence to protecting the rights and privacy of individuals.
The subject of artificial intelligence (A.I. or AI) has been controversial and divisive, particularly after 2022. Large Language Models (LLM) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and image generators like Midjourney have become prevalent technologies. But they have also been the subject of ongoing issues, not the least of which is the current SAG-AFTRA strike which highlights the potential abuse of A.I. by studios and production companies in the entertainment industry.
But change may be on the horizon. U.S. President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence.
Join me as I sign a landmark Executive Order that will ensure our nation seizes the tremendous promise – and manages the risks – posed by AI. https://t.co/21yKPHNL9q
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 30, 2023
According to the White House press release, the EO “establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world”.
Some of the highlights of the U.S. President’s Executive Order include:
- Requiring developers of A.I. systems share their safety test results and other critical information with the U.S. government.
- Protection against AI-enabled fraud, with A.I. generated content (particularly images) being required to have watermarks and authentication.
- Mitigate the negative impact of AI and support workers, including the ability to collectively bargain for their rights.
The complete fact sheet of the White House’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence can be found at this link.
Coincidentally, the leading industrial countries comprising the Group of 7 (aka G7) agreed only a day earlier on a code of conduct for companies under their individual jurisdictions to follow regarding the development and implementation of A.I.
Among the G7 leaders is President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who welcomed the G7 International Guiding Principles and the voluntary Code of Conduct, stating that it reflects the “EU values to promote trustworthy AI”.
It should be noted that the President Biden’s EO only applies to the United States. Moreover, an Executive Order is not as permanent as an actual law ratified by the U.S. Congress. In fact, the next U.S. President may rescind this EO or modify it with a new one during their administration.
In addition, the G7’s code of conduct is voluntary. Although G7 leaders like the aforementioned President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen may urge companies to practice ethical development and applications of A.I., the actual enforcement of the code of conduct is unclear.
Though to be fair, the EU established the AI Act that addressed the privacy and safety concerns on the use of AI within their territories. An example of this is the French government raiding Nvidia offices due to suspicion of anti-competitive practices related to the sale of artificial intelligence chips.
The development and use of artificial intelligence systems took a sharp increase by the later months of 2022. ChatGPT saw 1 million users during its initial launch, which ballooned to over 100 million by January 2023. This despite serious questions of whether the datasets it was trained on were exploiting private and proprietary content without consent or compensation.
AI-powered image generators like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, and others also saw a surge of popularity. However, the datasets being used were similarly questioned, particularly with imagery that may be violating people’s privacy and exploiting children.
The entertainment and gaming industries have also been subjected to the scrutiny of abusing A.I. Just recently, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro were under fire for the use of AI images in their Dungeons & Dragons product, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. Plus, the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes brought public awareness of the AI situation in Hollywood.
Will this new development of AI mandates lead to a new and clearer A.I. landscape? Given the guidelines under the U.S. EO, will companies that have jumped head first into the AI bandwagon blink from the potential costs of ensuring privacy and safety, as well as worker protection being on the forefront?
