With the election decided and the next four years ahead of us, President-elect Biden is putting forward his plans to innovate and expand technological advancement. The Biden Harris Administration announced their Innovate in America plan that commits $300-billion to Research and Development (R&D) and Breakthrough Technologies. The funding aims to ‘unleash high-quality job creation in high-value manufacturing and technology,’ and specifically highlights electric vehicles, 5G, and artificial intelligence as areas that will receive funding.
Innovation is a core theme of the President-elect’s priorities. Significant resources are being deployed to “drive dramatic cost reductions in critical clean energy technologies, including battery storage, negative emissions technologies, the next generation of building materials, renewable hydrogen, and advanced nuclear – and rapidly commercialize them, ensuring that those new technologies are made in America.”
Of course, advancing innovation requires the elevation of science and research, and comes at a time that the country is in dire straits due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a response that has delegitimized science. One of President-elect Biden’s first announcements is that a coronavirus taskforce is being built to develop an ‘action blueprint’ to puts steps in place that will be followed in January post-inauguration. According to CNN, the heads of that taskforce will be renowned scientists — former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Yale University’s School of Medicine.
A Wall Street Journal report today noted that the Biden administration has not responded to a request for specifics on its request for information on Artificial Intelligence spending. That report does note however that spending on AI between 2020 and 2022 was expected to be approximately $2-billion, and that Biden would increase that amount. He is also expected to introduce a new approach to AI. Robert Atkinson is the president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation and gave his thoughts to the WSJ. “On the regulatory front… a Biden administration would bring a shift in approach. For example, it may require AI algorithms to be explainable and transparent when used in business, he said. The Trump administration has preferred a light-touch approach toward regulation to avoid holding back U.S. leadership in the field,” the WSJ wrote.
Will Hunt is a fellow at UC Berkeley’s AI Security Initiative. He wrote an op-ed for Fortune magazine titled ‘Regulations could speed up, not slow down, A.I. progress‘ that was published this week. Hunt is concerned that as AI becomes more ubiquitous and powerful, a lack of regulation will be problematic. “While a hands-off approach might foster innovation on the Internet, in aviation and other industries it can be an obstacle to progress, Hunt writes. “Part of the problem is that safety regulations for aviation are both extensive and deeply incompatible with A.I., necessitating broad revisions and additions to existing rules.”
Hunt raises the issue that some industries require checks and balances that may not be available via AI that is not transparent. “For example, aircraft certification processes follow a logic-based approach in which every possible input and output receives attention and analysis. But this approach often doesn’t work for A.I. models, many of which react differently even to slight perturbations of input, generating a nearly infinite number of outcomes to consider.” Hunt is optimistic that the incoming administration will set standards to develop AI-appropriate regulations.
Not only does he encourage the Biden Harris government to “prioritize A.I. safety research and regulatory frameworks for A.I. that support innovation in aviation and other industries,” but Hunt would also like to see the administration develop prototype solutions in the private sector. He points to OpenAI’s suggestions for AI governance as a guiding path forward.
The Biden administration is likely to govern AI and other advancing technologies with a stronger hand than the previous administration. A new book on AI policy called ‘Turning Point‘ reiterates that governments need to play a key role in promoting trustworthy and responsible AI. A Brink report published this month predicts that AI regulation will increase over the next four years. That report also suggests that the tech-sector generally will see increased regulation, and posits that the following policy areas will be pursued by the Biden administration:
- Tougher anti-bias enforcement
- Stronger action against foreign government interference
- More support for workers rights in a gig economy
- Higher spending on digital infrastructure and adoption programs
- More support for an open internet
- More competition but less confrontation with China
Artificial Intelligence is being implemented in industries all over the world and is a central theme of the research undertaken at UCIPT. Our work in the HOPE study is using data to assess and shift behavioral outcomes among HIV and other populations.