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Bipartisan House AI Task Force Releases 2024 Report, Setting the


In February 2024, the House of Representatives launched a bipartisan Task Force on Synthetic Intelligence (AI). The group was tasked with learning and offering steering on methods the United States can proceed to steer in AI and absolutely capitalize on the advantages it gives whereas mitigating the dangers related to this thrilling but rising know-how. On 17 December 2024, after practically a 12 months of holding hearings and assembly with {industry} leaders and specialists, the group launched the long-awaited Bipartisan House Task Force Report on Artificial Intelligence. This sturdy report touches on how this know-how impacts nearly each {industry} starting from rural agricultural communities to power and the monetary sector to call only a few. It’s clear that the AI coverage and regulatory area will proceed to evolve whereas being entrance and heart for each Congress and the new administration as lawmakers, regulators, and companies proceed to grapple with this new thrilling know-how.

The 274-page report highlights “America’s management in its method to accountable AI innovation whereas contemplating guardrails which may be applicable to safeguard the nation in opposition to present and rising threats.” Particularly, it outlines the Task Force’s key findings and suggestions for Congress to legislate in over a dozen completely different sectors. The Task Force co-chairs, Consultant Jay Obernolte (R-CA) and Consultant Ted Lieu (D-CA), called the report a “roadmap for Congress to observe to each safeguard customers and foster continued US funding and innovation in AI,” and a “start line to deal with urgent points involving synthetic intelligence.” 

There was a excessive degree of bipartisan work on AI in the 118th Congress, and though most of the laws on this space didn’t find yourself turning into regulation, the working group report gives perception into what legislators might do that 12 months and which industries could also be of explicit focus. Our crew continues to observe laws, Congressional hearings, and the newest developments writ giant in these industries as we transition into the 119th Congress. See under for a sector-by-sector breakdown of quite a lot of findings and suggestions from the report.

Information Privateness

The report’s part on knowledge privateness discusses superior AI methods’ want to gather large quantities of information, the important dangers this creates for the unauthorized use of customers’ private knowledge, the present state of US shopper privateness safety legal guidelines, and suggestions to handle these points. 

It begins with a dialogue of AI methods’ want for “giant portions of information from a number of various sources” to carry out at an optimum degree. Firms acquire and license this knowledge in quite a lot of methods, together with gathering knowledge from their very own customers, scraping knowledge from the web, or some mixture of those and different strategies. Additional, some firms acquire, bundle, and promote scraped knowledge “whereas others launch open-source knowledge units.” These assortment strategies elevate their very own set of points. For instance, in line with the report, many web sites following “a voluntary normal” state that their web sites shouldn’t be scraped, however their requests are ignored and litigation ensues. It additionally notes that some firms “are updating their privateness insurance policies as a way to allow the use of person knowledge to coach AI fashions” however not in any other case informing customers that their knowledge is getting used for this objective. The European Union and Federal Commerce Fee have challenged this observe. It notes that in response, “some firms are turning to privacy-enhanced applied sciences, which search to guard the privateness and confidentiality of information when sharing it.” In addition they are taking a look at “artificial knowledge.”

In flip, the report discusses the kinds of harms that buyers regularly expertise when their private and delicate knowledge is shared deliberately or unintentionally with out their authorization. The listing consists of bodily, financial, emotional, reputational, discrimination, and autonomy harms.

The report follows with a dialogue of the present state of US shopper privateness safety legal guidelines. It kicks off with a well-known tune: “At present, there is no such thing as a complete US federal knowledge privateness and safety regulation.” It notes that there are a number of sector particular federal privateness legal guidelines, comparable to these supposed to guard well being and monetary knowledge and kids’s knowledge, however, as has develop into clear from this 12 months’s Congressional debate, even these legal guidelines must be up to date. It additionally notes that 19 states have adopted state privateness legal guidelines however notes that their requirements fluctuate. This means that, as in the case of state knowledge breach legal guidelines, the result’s that they’ve “created a patchwork of guidelines and rules with many drawbacks.” This has brought on confusion amongst customers and resulted in elevated prices and lawsuits for companies. It concludes with the assertion that Federal laws that preempts state knowledge privateness legal guidelines has benefits and downsides.” The report outlines three Key Findings: (1) “AI has the potential to exacerbate privateness harms;” (2) “People have restricted recourse for a lot of privateness harms;” and (3) “Federal privateness legal guidelines might doubtlessly increase state legal guidelines.”

Primarily based on its findings, the report recommends that Congress ought to: (1) assist “in facilitating entry to consultant knowledge units in privacy-enhanced methods” and “help partnerships to enhance the design of AI methods” and (2) make sure that US privateness legal guidelines are “know-how impartial” and “can deal with the most salient privateness issues with respect to the coaching and use of superior AI methods.”

Nationwide Safety 

The report highlights each the potential advantages of rising applied sciences to US protection capabilities, in addition to the dangers, particularly if the United States is outpaced by its adversaries in improvement. The report discusses the standing and successes of present AI applications at the Division of Protection (DOD), the Military, and the Navy. The report categorizes points going through improvement of AI in the nationwide safety area into technical and nontechnical impediments. The technical impediments embrace elevated knowledge utilization, infrastructure/compute energy, assaults on algorithms and fashions, and expertise acquisition, particularly when competing with the non-public sector in the workforce. The report additionally identifies perceived institutional challenges going through DOD, saying “acquisition professionals, senior leaders, and warfighters usually hesitate to undertake new, modern applied sciences and their related threat of failure. DOD should shift this mindset to 1 extra accepting of failure when testing and integrating AI and different modern applied sciences.” The nontechnical challenges recognized in the report revolved round third-party improvement of AI and the lack of ability of the United States to regulate methods it doesn’t create. The report notes that developments in AI are pushed primarily by the non-public sector and encourages DOD to capitalize on that innovation, together with by means of extra well timed procurement of AI options at scale with nontraditional protection contractors. 

Chief amongst the report’s findings and suggestions is a name to Congress to discover ways in which the US nationwide safety equipment can “safely undertake and harness the advantages of AI” and to make use of its oversight powers to hone in on AI actions for nationwide safety. Different findings give attention to the want for superior cloud entry, the worth of AI in contested environments, and the skill of AI to handle DOD enterprise processes. The extra suggestions have been to increase AI coaching at DOD, proceed oversight of autonomous weapons insurance policies, and help worldwide cooperation on AI by means of the Political Declaration on Accountable Navy Use of AI. The report signifies that Congress will probably be paying way more consideration to the improvement and deployment of AI in the nationwide safety area going ahead, and now’s the time for impacted stakeholders to interact on this challenge.

Training and the Workforce

The report additionally highlights the function of AI applied sciences in training and the promise and challenges that it might pose on the workforce. The report acknowledges that regardless of the worldwide demand for science, know-how, engineering, and arithmetic (STEM) employees, the United States has a major hole in the expertise wanted to analysis, develop, and deploy AI applied sciences. Because of this, the report discovered that coaching and educating US learners on AI subjects will probably be important to persevering with US management in AI know-how. The report notes that coaching the future generations of expertise in AI-related fields wants to start out with AI and STEM training. Digital literacy has prolonged to new literacies, comparable to media, pc, knowledge, and now AI. Challenges embrace assets for AI literacy. 

US management in AI would require rising the pool of skilled AI practitioners, together with folks with expertise in researching, growing, and incorporating AI methods. The report notes that this may possible require increasing workforce pathways past the conventional academic routes and a brand new understanding of the AI workforce, together with its demographic make-up, adjustments in the workforce over time, employment gaps, and the penetration of AI-related jobs throughout sectors. A important facet to understanding the AI workforce will probably be having good knowledge. US management in AI will even require public-private partnerships as a method to bolster the AI workforce. This consists of collaborations between academic establishments, authorities, and industries with market wants and rising applied sciences.

Whereas the automation of human jobs is just not new, utilizing AI to automate duties throughout industries has the potential to displace jobs that contain repetitive or predictable duties. On this regard, the report notes that whereas AI might displace some jobs, it’ll increase present jobs and create new ones. Such new jobs will inevitably require extra superior expertise, comparable to AI system design, upkeep, and oversight. Different jobs, nevertheless, might require much less superior expertise. The report provides that harnessing the advantages of AI methods would require a workforce able to integrating these methods into their each day jobs. It additionally highlights a number of present applications for workforce improvement, which may very well be up to date to handle a few of these challenges.

Total, the report discovered that AI is more and more utilized in the office by each employers and workers. US AI management can be strengthened by using a extra expert technical workforce. Fostering home AI expertise and continued US management would require important enhancements in fundamental STEM training and coaching. AI adoption requires AI literacy and assets for educators.

Primarily based on the above, the report recommends the following:

  • Put money into Ok-12 STEM and AI training and broaden participation.
  • Bolster US AI expertise by offering wanted AI assets.
  • Develop a full understanding of the AI workforce in the United States.
  • Facilitate public-private partnerships to bolster the AI workforce.
  • Develop regional experience when supporting government-university-industry partnerships.
  • Broaden pathways to the AI workforce for all People.
  • Assist the standardization of labor roles, job classes, duties, talent units, and competencies for AI-related jobs.
  • Consider present workforce improvement applications.
  • Promote AI literacy throughout the United States.
  • Empower US educators with AI coaching and assets.
  • Assist Nationwide Science Basis curricula improvement.
  • Monitor the interplay of labor legal guidelines and employee protections with AI adoption.

Power Utilization and Information Facilities

AI has the energy to modernize our power sector, strengthen our economic system, and bolster our nationwide safety however provided that the grid can help it. As the report particulars, electrical demand is predicted to develop over the subsequent 5 years as knowledge facilities—amongst different main power customers—proceed to come back on-line. These applied sciences’ outpacing of latest energy capability can “trigger provide constraints and lift power costs, creating challenges for electrical grid reliability and inexpensive electrical energy.” Whereas knowledge facilities solely take a number of years to assemble, new sources of energy, comparable to energy vegetation and transmission infrastructure, can take as much as or over a decade to finish. To fulfill rising electrical demand and help US management in AI, the report recommends the following:

  • Assist and enhance federal investments in scientific analysis that permits improvements in AI {hardware}, algorithmic effectivity, power know-how improvement, and power infrastructure.
  • Strengthen efforts to trace and challenge AI knowledge heart energy utilization.
  • Create new requirements, metrics, and a taxonomy of definitions for speaking related power use and effectivity metrics.
  • Make sure that AI and the power grid are part of broader discussions about grid modernization and safety.
  • Make sure that the prices of latest infrastructure are borne primarily by these prospects who obtain the related advantages.
  • Promote broader adoption of AI to reinforce power infrastructure, power manufacturing, and power effectivity.

Well being Care

The report highlights that AI applied sciences have the potential to enhance a number of features of well being care analysis, analysis, and care supply. The report gives an outline of use so far and its promise in the well being care system, together with with regard to drug, medical system, and software program improvement, in addition to in diagnostics and biomedical analysis, medical decision-making, inhabitants well being administration, and well being care administration. The report additionally highlights the use of AI by payers of well being care providers each for the protection of AI-provided providers and gadgets and for the use of AI instruments in the medical insurance {industry}.

The report notes that the evolution of AI in well being care has raised new coverage points and challenges. This consists of points involving knowledge availability, utility, and high quality as the knowledge required to coach AI methods should exist, be of top quality, and have the ability to be transferred and mixed. It additionally entails points regarding interoperability and transparency. AI-enabled instruments should have the ability to combine with well being care methods, together with EHR methods, and so they must be clear for suppliers and different customers to know how an AI mannequin makes selections. Information-related dangers additionally embrace the potential for bias, which could be discovered throughout improvement or as the system is deployed. Lastly, there’s the lack of authorized and moral steering concerning accountability when AI produces incorrect diagnoses or suggestions. 

Total, the report discovered that AI’s use in well being care can doubtlessly cut back administrative burdens and pace up drug improvement and medical analysis. When used appropriately, these makes use of of AI might result in elevated effectivity, higher affected person care, and improved well being outcomes. The report additionally discovered that the lack of requirements for medical knowledge and algorithms impedes system interoperability and knowledge sharing. The report notes that if AI instruments can not simply join with all related medical methods, their adoption and use may very well be impeded.

Primarily based on the above, the report recommends the following:

  • Encourage the practices wanted to make sure AI in well being care is secure, clear, and efficient.
  • Preserve sturdy help for well being care analysis associated to AI.
  • Create incentives and steering to encourage threat administration of AI applied sciences in well being care throughout numerous deployment situations to help AI adoption and enhance privateness, improve safety, and stop disparate well being outcomes.
  • Assist the improvement of requirements for legal responsibility associated to AI points.
  • Assist applicable fee mechanisms with out stifling innovation.

Monetary Providers

With respect to monetary providers, the report emphasizes that AI is already and has been used for many years inside the monetary providers system, by each {industry} and monetary regulators alike. Key examples of use instances have included fraud detection, underwriting, debt assortment, buyer onboarding, actual property, funding analysis, property administration, customer support, and regulatory compliance, amongst different issues. The report additionally notes that AI presents each important dangers and alternatives to the monetary system, so it’s important to be considerate when contemplating and crafting regulatory and legislative frameworks as a way to defend customers and the integrity of the monetary system, whereas additionally guaranteeing to not stifle technological innovation. As such, the report states that lawmakers ought to undertake a principles-based method that’s agnostic to technological advances, slightly than a technology-based method, as a way to protect longevity of the regulatory ecosystem as know-how evolves over time, significantly given the speedy charge at which AI know-how is advancing. 
 
Importantly, the report notes that small monetary establishments could also be at a major drawback with respect to adoption of AI, given a scarcity of ample assets to leverage AI at scale, and states that regulators and lawmakers should make sure that bigger monetary establishments aren’t inadvertently favored in insurance policies in order to not restrict the skill of smaller establishments to compete or enter the market. Furthermore, the report stresses the want to keep up related shopper and investor protections with AI utilization, significantly with respect to knowledge privateness, discrimination, and predatory practices.

A Multi-Department Strategy to AI/Subsequent Steps

The Task Force acknowledges that AI coverage is not going to fall strictly beneath the purview of Congress. Co-chair Obernolte shared that he has met with David Sacks, President Trump’s “AI Czar,” in addition to members of the transition crew to debate what’s in the report. 

We will probably be intently following how each the administration and Congress act on AI in 2025, and we’re assured that no {industry} will probably be left untouched.

 

Vivian Ok. Bridges, Lauren E. Hamma, Abby Dinegar contributed to this text.



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