WASHINGTON.- Federal agencies must demonstrate that their artificial intelligence tools do not harm people, or stop using them, under new rules revealed by the White House on Thursday.
“When government agencies use AI tools, we will require them to verify that those tools do not endanger the rights and security of the American people,” Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters before the announcement.
By December, each entity must have a set of concrete safeguards that guide everything from facial recognition screens at airports to AI tools that help monitor the power grid or determine home mortgages and insurance.
The new directive issued Thursday to agency heads by the White House Office of Management and Budget is part of the sweeping AI executive order signed by President Joe Biden in October.
While the broad decree seeks to safeguard commercial AI systems made by leading technology companies, such as those that power generative AI chatbots, Thursday’s directive targets tools that agencies have used for years to make decisions about immigration, housing, child welfare and a range of services.
As an example, Harris said that “if the Veterans Administration wants to use AI in its hospitals to help doctors diagnose patients, they will need to demonstrate first and foremost that AI does not produce racially biased diagnoses.”
Agencies that cannot apply the safeguards “should stop using the AI system unless management can explain why doing so would increase overall risks or rights or create an insurmountable obstacle to their crucial operations,” according to an announcement from the agency. White House.
There are two other “binding requirements,” Harris said. One is that federal entities must hire an AI chief with the “experience, expertise and authority” to oversee all AI technologies employed by the agency, Harris said. The other is that each year agencies must publish an inventory of their AI systems that includes an assessment of their potential risks.
There are some exceptions for intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense, which has a particular debate over the use of autonomous weapons.
Source: With information from AP
