My Opinion Piece Part 1: The White House Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence and the Proposed AI Bill of Rights: Oct 30, 2023
The White House Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence has sparked a much-needed conversation about the responsible development and use of AI technologies. As we delve deeper into this topic, it's essential to consider the proposed AI Bill of Rights, which outlines key principles for the ethical and equitable deployment of AI. Let's explore some key opinions and pros and cons surrounding this proposed bill.
TL:DR Takeaway Opinions: A Good Start but A Lot To Finish and Too Many Platitudes
Protection of Individual Rights: One of the key strengths of the proposed AI Bill of Rights is its focus on protecting individual rights. By ensuring that AI systems do not infringe upon privacy, civil liberties, and equal treatment, this bill aims to create a fair and inclusive AI landscape. This emphasis on individual rights is a crucial step towards building public trust in AI technologies.
Ethical Considerations: The proposed bill emphasizes the need for AI systems to be developed and used in an ethical manner (but this is kind of no-crap statement and doesn’t speak at all in what incentive structures must change in the rest of the economic system to actual achieve and catalyze this behavior sustainably and productively). However, it does a decent job in my opinion laying out most of the key elements that this would require, including addressing biases, ensuring transparency, and promoting accountability. By incorporating these ethical considerations, the bill aims to mitigate potential harms and ensure that AI benefits society as a whole.
Pros:
Clear Guidelines and Somewhat Predictable Opportunities: The proposed AI Bill of Rights provides clear guidelines for the responsible development and use of AI technologies. These guidelines can serve as a framework for organizations, boards, investors, entrepreneurs, and developers, ensuring that AI systems are aligned with ethical and equitable principles, while also hinting at the rewards of large scale Federal contracts, grants, and commercialization opportunities within the text.
Public Trust: By prioritizing individual rights, privacy, and fairness, the bill aims to build public trust in AI technologies. This trust is crucial for the widespread adoption and acceptance of AI, as it assures individuals that their rights and well-being are protected. However, again this is more platitude than plan in my humble opinion but we have to start somewhere. What we already know and the White House acknowledges by putting this up front and center is that Distrust is the current default citizens have with almost every institution today, and also in growing amounts with Big technology. It also acknowledges that without putting this in as a core dna strand to any bill that AI will compound the current distrust to potentially existential levels.
it is important for the innovators and the change makers in this space to understand this guidance and benefit from the clarity it provides as they look to make positive impacts, scale, and avoid tail risk along the way. To that latter end, this document provides value as a starting point for trust to be rebuilt.
Cons:
Balancing Innovation and Regulation: While the proposed bill aims to regulate the development and use of AI, there is a concern that excessive regulation may stifle innovation. Striking the right balance between fostering innovation and ensuring responsible AI deployment is a challenge that needs to be carefully addressed. My prediction is that many a contract, grant, and funding opportunity will be available for firms that adhere first and prominently to this framework though as the mandate to protect critical infrastructure from enemies who will not have ethics in their development poses our biggest threat. Read that as its time to get relationships on the biz dev side on Capitol Hill and government relations firms like ConnectorLabs.com (disclosure I am on the advisory board) will see new practice areas explode in 2024 with small to medium size firms selling or developing AI layer 2 and 3 solutions in their stack on top of LLMs.
Contrary to many likely opinions I don’t see AI being at risk of pushing US innovation offshore, because this technology is far too critical to any government’s survival. However, the rules of the road for building and selling solutions to American companies and its governments will most definitely be considered a local vendor opportunity and change the shape of distributed teams and talent recruitment in 2023/24 as it relates to being compliant with any future security checks in the proposed bill.
Implementation Challenges: Implementing the proposed AI Bill of Rights may pose challenges, particularly in terms of enforcement and compliance. Not to mention that it also is very important and opportunistic to bring light to the important Constitutional framework of our human Bill of Rights. This cannot be a partisan approach and yet will have trouble avoiding it as we enter an election year. I am an optimist and hope for the best, but the duopoly is a toxic preventer of rationale discourse and has billions of dollars on each side to point fingers, leverage crisis for more power grabs and erode the current Bill of Rights and liberties we all enjoy, so it will be interesting and challenging to create an important new one while the other remains in a tug o war.
Nonetheless, ensuring that organizations and developers adhere to the principles outlined in the bill will require robust mechanisms and oversight, and it may also serve as an opportunity to breathe new life and interest back in the actual Constitution and Bill of Rights we have as designing this new one will reference those foundational documents as it catalyzes the debate.
In conclusion, the White House Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, along with the proposed AI Bill of Rights, represents significant steps towards a responsible and ethical AI landscape regardless of if it is long overdue or on time. While opinions may vary on the pros and cons of the proposed bill, it is clear that the conversation surrounding AI ethics and regulation is crucial for shaping a future where AI technologies benefit society while upholding our values and individual rights.
Check out my portfolio of active AI and related cryptographic interests (nBrain; Twin Protocol; Metakeep.xyz; Connectorlabs) and reach out to me on Linkedin to join this conversation. I will continue to update this opinion piece as more comes out in the coming weeks.
