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\n\tPresident Joe Biden\u00a0on Monday will sign a sweeping executive order to guide the development of\u00a0artificial intelligence\u00a0\u2014 requiring industry to develop safety and security standards, introducing new consumer protections and giving federal agencies an extensive to-do list to oversee the rapidly progressing technology.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe order reflects the government\u2019s effort to shape how AI evolves in a way that can maximize its possibilities and contain its perils. AI has been a source of\u00a0deep personal interest\u00a0for Biden, with its potential to affect the economy and national security.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhite House chief of staff Jeff Zients recalled Biden giving his staff a directive to move with urgency on the issue, having considered the technology a top priority.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe can\u2019t move at a normal government pace,\u201d Zients said the Democratic president told him. \u201cWe have to move as fast, if not faster than the technology itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn Biden\u2019s view, the government was late to address the risks of social media and now U.S. youth are grappling with related mental health issues. AI has the positive ability to accelerate cancer research, model the impacts of climate change, boost economic output and improve government services among other benefits. But it could also warp basic notions of truth with false images, deepen racial and social inequalities and provide a tool to scammers and criminals.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe order builds on\u00a0voluntary commitments\u00a0already made by technology companies. It\u2019s part of a broader strategy that administration officials say also includes congressional legislation and international diplomacy, a sign of the disruptions already caused by the introduction of new AI tools such as ChatGPT that can generate new text, images and sounds.<\/p>\n
\n\tUsing the Defense Production Act, the order will require leading AI developers to share safety test results and other information with the government. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is to create standards to ensure AI tools are safe and secure before public release.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Commerce Department is to issue guidance to label and watermark AI-generated content to help differentiate between authentic interactions and those generated by software. The order also touches on matters of privacy, civil rights, consumer protections, scientific research and worker rights.<\/p>\n
\n\tAn administration official who previewed the order on a Sunday call with reporters said the to-do lists within the order will be implemented and fulfilled over the range of 90 days to 365 days, with the safety and security items facing the earliest deadlines. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, as required by the White House.<\/p>\n
\n\tLast Thursday, Biden gathered his aides in the Oval Office to review and finalize the executive order, a 30-minute meeting that stretched to 70 minutes, despite other pressing matters including the mass shooting in Maine, the Israel-Hamas war and the selection of a new House speaker.<\/p>\n
\n\tBiden was profoundly curious about the technology in the months of meetings that led up to drafting the order. His science advisory council focused on AI at two meetings and his Cabinet discussed it at two meetings. The president also pressed tech executives and civil society advocates about the technology\u2019s capabilities at multiple gatherings.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe was as impressed and alarmed as anyone,\u201d deputy White House chief of staff Bruce Reed said in an interview. \u201cHe saw fake AI images of himself, of his dog. He saw how it can make bad poetry. And he\u2019s seen and heard the incredible and terrifying technology of voice cloning, which can take three seconds of your voice and turn it into an entire fake conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe possibility of false images and sounds led the president to prioritize the labeling and watermarking of anything produced by AI. Biden also wanted to thwart the risk of older Americans getting a phone call from someone who sounded like a loved one, only to be scammed by an AI tool.<\/p>\n
\n\tMeetings could go beyond schedule, with Biden telling civil society advocates in a ballroom of San Francisco\u2019s Fairmont Hotel in June: \u201cThis is important. Take as long as you need.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe president also talked with scientists and saw the upside that AI created if harnessed for good. He listened to a Nobel Prize-winning physicist talk about how AI could explain the origins of the universe. Another scientist showed how AI could model extreme weather like 100-year floods, as the past data used to assess these events has lost its accuracy because of climate change.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe issue of AI was seemingly inescapable for Biden. At Camp David one weekend, he relaxed by watching the Tom Cruise film \u201cMission: Impossible \u2014 Dead Reckoning Part One.\u201d The film\u2019s villain is a sentient and rogue AI known as \u201cthe Entity\u201d that sinks a submarine and kills its crew in the movie\u2019s opening minutes.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIf he hadn\u2019t already been concerned about what could go wrong with AI before that movie, he saw plenty more to worry about,\u201d said Reed, who watched the film with the president.<\/p>\n
\n\tWith Congress\u00a0still in the early stages\u00a0of debating AI safeguards, Biden\u2019s order stakes out a U.S. perspective as countries around the world race to establish\u00a0their own guidelines. After more than two years of deliberation, the European Union is putting the final touches on\u00a0a comprehensive set of regulations\u00a0that targets the riskiest applications for the technology. China, a key AI rival to the U.S., has also set some rules.<\/p>\n
\n\tU.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also hopes to carve out a prominent role for Britain as an AI safety hub at a summit this week that Vice President Kamala\u00a0Harris plans to attend.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe U.S., particularly its West Coast, is home to many of the leading developers of cutting-edge AI technology, including tech giants Google, Meta and Microsoft and AI-focused startups such as OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. The White House took advantage of that industry weight earlier this year when it secured commitments from those companies to implement safety mechanisms as they build new AI models.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut the White House also faced significant pressure from Democratic allies, including labor and civil rights groups, to make sure its policies reflected their concerns about AI\u2019s real-world harms.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe American Civil Liberties Union is among the groups that met with the White House to try to ensure \u201cwe\u2019re holding the tech industry and tech billionaires accountable\u201d so that algorithmic tools \u201cwork for all of us and not just a few,\u201d said ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU\u2019s racial justice program.<\/p>\n
\n\tSuresh Venkatasubramanian, a former Biden administration official who helped craft principles for approaching AI, said one of the biggest challenges within the federal government has been what to do about law enforcement\u2019s use of AI tools, including at U.S. borders.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThese are all places where we know that the use of automation is very problematic, with facial recognition, drone technology,\u201d Venkatasubramanian said. Facial recognition technology has been shown to perform unevenly across racial groups, and has been\u00a0tied to mistaken arrests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n