Over the years on many issues, Voices for Innovation has emphasized that positive developments in tech innovation and policymaking are driven by cooperative engagement by the private and public sectors. This will be true for advances in responsible AI as well. Government can establish needed guardrails, but tech companies and customers must also take actions to ensure that AI is used safely, responsibly, and legally.
Earlier this week, Microsoft announced three AI Customer Commitments to help advance responsible AI. These commitments in part will foster engagement between regulators and enterprise technology users. In addition, Microsoft will detail how it is implementing the AI Risk Management Framework recently published by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). To learn more, check out this blog post.
Thank you for reading! You’ll find this week’s roundup of tech policy news and a featured podcast below.
This Week in Washington
- Nextgov: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a new team of leaders for its CHIPS Research and Development Office that is working to propel the U.S. as a leader in the semiconductor sector.
- Roll Call: As the Biden administration navigates legislation around the debt ceiling, cybersecurity, which requires constant advancements and innovation, faces millions in cuts.
- Axios: President Joe Biden nominated Air Force Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh last week to be the next leader of the Pentagon’s U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency. Additional new leadership at the Pentagon and NSA is expected to be appointed or promoted as the cyber threat landscape becomes more complex.
- The Washington Post: In a joint letter, several financial service industry groups called upon the SEC to adjust their cybersecurity rules, believing they are overly burdensome and conflict with one another; however, the advocacy group, Better Markets, believes they need to strengthen their rules and implement additional measures.
- CBS News: With millions of homes and businesses across the U.S. lacking connection to high-speed broadband service, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is leading the push for them to receive access to the necessary infrastructure. How the $65 billion for this broadband push will be divided is to be announced at the end of June based on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) newly-released broadband map.
- New York Times: Two senators sent a letter to Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, accusing him of misleading Congress during his testimony in March. The senators cited a report from Forbes that said the app had been storing personal information from users that are part of their Creator Fund.
Article Summary
- Axios: With the 2024 election cycle looming, big tech firms are beginning to roll back policies they had in place to combat misinformation around Covid-19 and the 2020 election. A few are even pulling back restrictions they’ve traditionally had for political ads.
- CyberScoop: With the threat of cyber attacks growing, university-led cyber clinics are stepping up to protect local institutions from ransomware and cyber attacks.
- Axios: Google has developed a new framework to help companies secure their AI systems against a new wave of cyber threats and hackers. They worry that companies are making cybersecurity and data privacy an afterthought for the emerging technology.
Featured Podcast
The Guardian
- Today in Focus
Sam Altman, the founder of the revolutionary application Chat-GPT, is touring Europe with a message: AI is changing the world and there are big risks, but also big potential rewards. (How to develop artificial super-intelligence without destroying humanity – June 6, 2023)