CDT and Coalition Urge White House to Ensure Forthcoming AI Executive Order Advances Civil Rights & Civil Liberties
Today, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the Center for American Progress (CAP) led a coalition of civil and human rights organizations in calling on the Biden-Harris Administration to use its anticipated forthcoming AI Executive Order to formalize the AI Bill of Rights as binding policy across the U.S. government’s use of AI systems.
The five core principles enshrined in the White House’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights — particularly that AI tools must be 1) demonstrated to be safe and effective, and 2) free from discrimination — are essential guardrails that will secure the rights and safety of the American public and those workers impacted by AI technologies. We urge the White House to implement those principles in the federal government’s own use and funding of AI systems, and ensure that AI systems used by the government, its contractors, vendors, and grantees are accountable to the American people.
The advocacy groups also call on the White House to lead on data privacy, push federal agencies to quickly implement the AI Executive order, and direct agencies to create and implement regulations that align with the goals of the AI Bill of Rights.
The September civil society letter builds on an earlier letter to the Biden Administration sent by CDT, The Leadership Conference, CAP, and other groups in August. This letter now adds over 50 additional group signatories, representing a broad set of consumer and human rights voices.
Coalition Urges Senate Not to Let Companies Waive Financial Regulations for AI
CDT joined AI Now Institute, American Civil Liberties Union, and several organizations dedicated to tech policy, consumer protection, and civil rights in a letter to Senate leadership and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee opposing the “AI Innovation Labs” language in Sec. 10509 of the CLARITY Act.
As concern about risks and harms related to AI systems continue to grow, a growing chorus of policymakers, industry leaders, and advocates have called for independent AI assessments. This explainer provides an overview of recent proposals for third-party assessment in the United States, including state and federal legislation, executive actions, and industry proposals.
Having third parties assess AI systems might seem like common sense, but crafting effective policies toward this goal can be devilishly tricky. A poorly-constructed ecosystem for third-party assessment could easily fail to consider the most consequential mechanisms of risk, neglect the AI harms that most impact people, or do more to protect AI companies than people.
Not All Guardrails Are Created Equal: Comparing Content Safety and Copyright Filtering
As courts and policymakers work through questions about chatbot liability, they should be wary of analogies that flatten meaningful technical differences. Copyright filtering and safety intervention share real challenges around ambiguity and evasion, but they diverge in what each control must assess, how each manifests over the course of a conversation, and how much can be verified from the outside.
