Last week, the Biden-Harris Administration announced new, voluntary commitments that seven leading A.I. companies—Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI—are taking to manage the risks of new A.I. development and use. These commitments come just two months after the White House announced new efforts to advance the development and use of responsible A.I. and six months after the National Institute for of Standards and Technology released its voluntary A.I. Risk Management Framework.
The voluntary commitments include (1) pre-deployment A.I. security testing, (2) A.I. risk management information sharing, (3) investments in A.I. cybersecurity safeguards, (4) exploration of A.I. vulnerability bug bounties, (5) research into watermarking systems and similar technical systems to help consumers identify A.I.-generated content, (6) public reporting of A.I. system capabilities and limitations, (7) research into the societal risks of A.I., including A.I. bias and privacy violations, and (8) greater deployment of advanced A.I. systems. The White House announcement did not detail any methods for holding leading A.I. companies accountable for these commitments.
In response to the White House’s announcement, EPIC released the following statement:
“While EPIC appreciates the Biden Administration’s use of its authorities to place safeguards on the use of artificial intelligence, we both agree that voluntary commitments are not enough when it comes to Big Tech. Congress and federal regulators must put meaningful, enforceable guardrails in place to ensure the use of AI is fair, transparent, and protects individuals’ privacy and civil rights.”
– Caitriona Fitzgerald, Deputy Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)