Biden signs executive order to ‘govern’ AI
Joe Biden Monday signed an executive order setting new standards for the development and use of artificial technology.
Tech industry leaders such as Elon Musk and Google have been warning about the daunting power of AI technology and its threat to the human race. To neutralize this threat, Biden says the US government will need to “govern” the technology.
“To realize the promise of AI and avoid the risk, we need to govern this technology. And there's no other way around it, in my view,” Biden said before signing the order.
In the order, Biden invokes the Defense Production Act to require AI system developers to provide the US government with ongoing reports on the development and training of those systems. The Defense Production Act also allows the federal government to force private companies to build products — in this case, AI programs — for “national defense.”
The order also instructs the Justice Department and federal civil rights offices to address racism in AI, or “algorithmic discrimination,” which involves creating a plan for “investigating and prosecuting civil rights violations related to AI.”
While the order does not detail what “safety standards” there will be for AI development, it makes clear that such standards are intended to be globalist in nature and adopted by world governments.
“The State Department, in collaboration, [sic] with the Commerce Department will lead an effort to establish robust international frameworks for harnessing AI’s benefits and managing its risks and ensuring safety,” reads the order, which also urges the government to “accelerate development and implementation of vital AI standards with international partners and in standards organizations, ensuring that the technology is safe, secure, trustworthy, and interoperable.”
Furthermore, the the government is instructed to use AI for “climate change” and other globalist purposes:
Promote the safe, responsible, and rights-affirming development and deployment of AI abroad to solve global challenges, such as advancing sustainable development and mitigating dangers to critical infrastructure.
The order also instructs the Department of Homeland Security to establish an advisory committee called the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board. The committee will advise on “improving security, resilience, and incident response related to AI usage in critical infrastructure.”
Another directive is to “ensure the responsible government deployment of AI” which involves launching “a government-wide AI talent surge” so that AI programs are used in all government agencies.
Other commands in the order relate to AI research and “AI safety practices” such as requiring companies to place watermarks or labels on generative AI content.
But experts warn that this could open the door to more censorship from the Biden administration.
“The executive order’s justifications leave open the possibility for all sorts of things — especially censorship,” Digital Progress Institute President Joel Thayer told the Daily Caller. “If we are simply placing labels on things, then what constitutes an AI-label? What are regulatory actions they can take if not appropriately labeled? Do they force companies to take down content? How much influence will the White House have over those decisions?”
American Principles Project Policy Director Jon Schweppe voiced concern about the government’s intention to “fight racism” in AI.
“Certainly we shouldn’t want a Bureau of Artificial Intelligence running around conducting investigations into whether a company’s AI algorithm is adequately ‘woke,'” Schweppe asserted.
