It's the U.S. government's first action of its kind, requiring new safety assessments, equity and civil rights guidance and research on AI's impact on the labor market.
While law enforcement agencies have warned that they're ready to apply existing law to abuses of AI and Congress has endeavored to learn more about the technology to craft new laws, the executive order could have a more immediate impact. Like all executive orders, it"has the force of law," according to a senior administration official who spoke with reporters on a call Sunday.
President Biden's executive order requires that large companies share safety test results with the U.S. government before the official release of AI systems. It also prioritizes the National Institute of Standards and Technology's development of standards for AI"red-teaming," or stress-testing the defenses and potential problems within systems. The Department of Commerce will develop standards for watermarking AI-generated content.
As far as a timeframe for the actions dictated by the executive order, the administration official said Sunday that the"most aggressive" timing for some safety and security aspects of the order involves a 90-day turnaround, and for some other aspects, that timeframe could be closer to a year.Monday's executive order follows a number of steps the White House has taken in recent months to create spaces to discuss the pace of AI development, as well as proposed guidelines.