AI Executive Order: Everything You Need to Know

In the first executive order of its kind, the Biden Administration laid out eight key components to establish nationwide AI standards.

President Joe Biden issued the White House’s first artificial intelligence-focused executive order on Monday. The order attempts to establish standards for AI safety and security, consumers’ privacy, equity, civil rights, research, and the advanced tech’s effect on the labor market.

This is the first action of its kind from the Biden Administration. The executive order comes after Biden met with top tech leaders over the summer to discuss AI regulations, research, and development. One major directive from the order: AI developers will now have to share internal testing data from AI systems with the government. Until now, AI companies have kept sensitive testing information private.

Here is a summary of the eight key components in the executive order. Short descriptions come from the White House fact sheet:

Creating new standards for AI safety and security, including requiring developers to share test results and other critical information from AI systems with the federal government, developing tools and tests for AI systems, protecting consumers against AI-enabled fraud and deception, and working with the Department of Commerce to develop guidance around content authentication and watermarking.
Protecting consumer privacy, including evaluating how agencies collect and use commercially available information, developing privacy-preserving techniques, and pushing Congress to pass bipartisan data privacy legislation.
Advancing equity and civil rights by addressing algorithmic discrimination and developing best practices for the use of AI across the criminal justice system.
Standing up for consumers, patients, and students by advancing the responsible use of AI in healthcare and shaping how AI can potentially transform the education system by creating resources to support educators.
Supporting workers by producing a report on AI’s potential impacts on the labor market, studying options to strengthen federal support for workers experiencing labor disruptions, and developing principles to avoid harm and maximize the benefits of AI for workers.
Promoting innovation and competition by providing AI resources and data to researchers and students, expanding grants for AI research, and expanding abilities for immigrants and nonimmigrants to study and work in the US.
Advancing US leadership abroad by working with international partners to develop and implement AI standards.
Ensuring responsible and effective government use of AI by issuing guidance for federal agencies’ use of AI, helping agencies acquire AI products and services, and accelerating the hiring of AI professionals to work for the government.

The Biden Administration has already engaged with other countries, including Canada, Nigeria, the UK, and Brazil, to begin building an international framework to govern AI development. The government will publish federal AI jobs on AI.gov moving forward

The Biden Administration will continue to roll out the framework for how this executive order will come into play. As it does, Boardroom will continue to follow and report the news.