White House unveils 'blueprint' for AI bill of rights

Between Amazon using technology to extract more productivity from its workforce, Clearview AI harvesting our facial features, schools trying to scan kids' rooms before exams, and the whole "accused of contributing to the genocide" from Facebook, the same technologies that brought us the wonders of the modern world have also brought about some of the horrors of the modern world. And, apparently, the Biden administration won't tolerate it.

Leah Millis / Reuters

On Tuesday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released its long-awaited blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights (BoR). The document "will help guide the design, development, and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated systems so that they protect the rights of the American public," according to a White House press release.

As such, the BoR will uphold five principles: safe and efficient systems, safeguards against algorithmic discrimination, data privacy, notice and explanation, and human alternatives, consideration and fallback. "Simply put, systems should work, they shouldn't discriminate, they shouldn't use data indiscriminately," BoR co-author Suresh Venkatasubramanian wrote in a tweet on Tuesday. "They must be visible and easy to understand, and they must not eliminate human interlocutors."

"Thousands of edits and comments made the document solid, rich and detailed," Venkatasubramanian continued. "The AI ​​Bill of Rights reflects, as befits its title, a consensual, broad, and profound American view of how to govern automated technologies that impact our lives."

"Automated technologies are driving remarkable innovations and shaping important decisions that impact people's rights, opportunities and access. The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights is for everyone who interacts with these powerful technologies on a daily basis - and for everyone whose lives have been altered by inexplicable algorithms," said Dr. Alondra Nelson, Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy for the science and society "The practices set out in the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights are not only ambitious; they are achievable and urgently needed to build technologies and a society that works for us all."

The administration has spent more than a year developing the BoR to its current state, including extensive public outreach through roundtables, public listening sessions, and meetings with all world, from workers and activists to CEOs and entrepreneurs. In addition to the bill itself, the OSTP has also published a companion book, From Principles to Practice, which details concrete steps that government entities and NGOs, public and private enterprises, should take to ensure that they operate within the scope and spirit of the document.

"The effective implementation of these processes requires cooperation and collaboration between industry, civil society, researchers, law enforcement...