But AI nerds may remember that exactly one year ago on July 21, 2023, Biden posed with seven top tech executives at the White House. He had just negotiated a deal where they agreed to eight of the most restrictive rules aimed at artificial intelligence at the time. A lot can change in a year!
The voluntary commitments were hailed as much-needed guidance for the AI sector, which has been building powerful technology with few guardrails. Since then, eight more companies have signed the pledges, and the White House has issued an executive order expanding on them—for example, by requiring developers to share the results of security tests on new AI models with the U.S. government if the tests show that the technology could endanger national security.
US politics is extremely polarized, and the country is unlikely to pass AI regulation anytime soon. So these commitments, along with some existing laws like antitrust and consumer protection rules, are the best the US has to protect people from AI harm. To mark the one year anniversary of the volunteer commitments, I decided to see what has happened since then. I asked the original seven companies that signed the voluntary pledges to share as much as they could about what they were doing to comply with them, cross-referenced their responses with a handful of outside experts, and tried to give a sense of how much progress has been made. You can read my story here.
Silicon Valley hates regulation and argues that it stifles innovation. Right now, the US relies on the goodwill of the tech sector to protect its consumers from harm, but these companies can decide to change their policies at any time and face no real consequences. And that’s the problem with non-binding commitments: They’re easy to sign and so easy to forget.
That doesn’t mean they have no value. They can be useful in creating rules around AI development and putting public pressure on companies to do better. In just a year, tech companies have implemented some positive changes, such as AI, watermarking, and investing in research on how to make AI systems secure. However, these types of engagements are only ‘opt-in’ and this means that companies can always simply opt out again. Which brings me to the next big question for this field: Where will Biden’s successor take US AI policy?
The debate surrounding the regulation of artificial intelligence is unlikely to stop if Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November. says Brandie Nonnecke, the director of the CITRIS Policy Lab at UC Berkeley.
“Sometimes parties have different concerns about the use of artificial intelligence. One may be more concerned about the impact on the workforce and another may be more concerned about prejudice and discrimination,” Nonnecke says. “It’s clearly a bipartisan issue that there needs to be some guardrails and oversight of AI development in the United States,” he adds.
Trump is no stranger to artificial intelligence. While in power, he signed executive order calling for more investment in AI research and asking the federal government to use more AI, coordinated by a new National AI Initiative Office. It also issued early guidance on responsible artificial intelligence;. If returned to office, he reportedly plans to scrap Biden’s executive order and implement his own AI Executive Order which reduces AI regulation and creates a “Manhattan Plan” to boost military AI. Meanwhile, Biden continues to ask Congress to pass binding AI regulations. It’s no surprise, then, that Silicon Valley billionaires backed Trump.