Last month, Vice President Kamala Harris promised from the convention stage at the DNC to "make sure that we lead the world into the future on ... artificial intelligence" if elected in November.
In doing so, she must strike a delicate balance between ensuring rapid development of the technology and minimizing potential harms.
It's a difficult task that her current role in the Biden-Harris administration shows she is highly cognizant of, and recent comments from her brother-in-law, longtime advisor and Uber executive Tony West, indicate that balance on AI policy is a top priority.
In direct contrast, former President Donald Trump's campaign and its allies have claimed that more legislation and regulation will undermine innovation, and have vowed to reverse the current Biden-Harris administration's executive order for an AI Bill of Rights — the closest thing our nation has to anything resembling the far-reaching EU AI Act, which is the world's first comprehensive horizontal legal framework for AI.
Trump's approach is fundamentally wrongheaded and threatens to undo the progress our nation has made and set America even further behind the world; instead of being repealed, the executive order should be codified into law by Congress.
Think of artificial intelligence as a racecar and AI regulation as the seat belt. We need to do more to ensure that both consumers and the businesses creating and implementing AI are protected when models don't work — to prevent a massive pileup.
Harris should focus on highlighting the existential harms that could be caused by letting AI run amok and the fallacies of the Trump campaign's approach, which has it entirely backwards. The fact is, we need laws to build safe AI in order to unleash economic growth.
As a former prosecutor who went after sexual predators, and as the current administration's "AI Czar," Harris has highlighted the technology's potential harms, such as a woman being "threatened by an abusive partner with explicit deepfake photographs."
Other examples of harm include AI misidentifying paying customers as shoplifters, encouraging users to commit suicide, or misidentifying targets in war.
But Harris should go even further in her plans and look to global models for guidance. For instance, for AI models to be successful, they require continuous testing, monitoring and auditing.
This is the only way that companies can be alerted immediately if their applications begin to drift into areas of bias, IP violations or cyberthreats.
As AI becomes more embedded into every sector of our economy, the potential implications are dire without any comprehensive policy framework.
The implications of a major error?
Trillions of dollars in market capitalization gone and immeasurable global economic damage; a potential crisis in trust for users worldwide; and the opportunity for the United States to be a global leader on AI squandered.
The reality is that AI bloopers that reinforce harms will only serve to undermine trust and hinder technological innovation. The less regulation, the more likely that the industry will face colossal setbacks. This is an existential issue both for companies creating AI and consumers.
The most talented entrepreneurs in the world live in America. Thanks to the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, we have quickly caught up with and will surpass the rest of the world in semiconductor manufacturing capacity.
As she seeks to earn the presidency, Harris should continue to articulate a forward-thinking vision that establishes the rules of the road on AI, to ensure that our nation and its innovative companies stay safely on track to build the technology of the future.
Originally published by The Well News.
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