A new AI policy initiative was launched with the focus of expanding the legal and academic scholarship around AI ethics and regulation. It will also host a boot camp for US Congress members to help them learn more about the technology.
During the trial with Mark Zuckerberg testimony in front of the Congress, the necessity to understand thoroughly about AI soon comes to the recognition of experts who were presented in the court. The questioners of Mark Zuckerberg had little knowledge on technology, which resulted in the chief executive of Facebook getting away with his convincing claims about the AI deal with their problems.
For that reason, Dipayan Ghosh, a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), put an emphasis on the need of schooling US politicians about major technology issues—and AI in particularly. On November 14th, Ghosh launched an initiative known as New AI Policy Initiative, with the help of Tom Wheeler, a senior research fellow at HKS and the chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission under Obama. The project is sponsored by HKS’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, with the aim to expand the legal and academic scholarship on AI ethics and regulation as well as providing enough information on technology to the Congress to equip them with knowledge for effective decision making and appropriate strategy for AI.
According to Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, “They hold, in many ways, the responsibility of communicating history to the corporations and other companies that are developing these technologies.” However, their knowledge on this subject is insufficient to make effective decision. Ghosh believed if a politician were asked whether AI is a part of the disinformation problem, they would deny it.
His initiative will take form of a boot camp in Washington DC in the next February exclusively for Congress members and their staff to create for a better policy discussion. The course will focus on AI ethics and regulation, to prevent potential risks and foster its benefits.
It is essential for decision makers to know more about the emerging technology to formulate appropriate policies and regulation for AI. According to Layer 3 of the AIWS 7-Layer Model being developed by the AIWS, the AIWS Standards and Practice Committee will engage with governments, corporations, universities, and other relevant organizations to facilitate understanding of AI threats and challenges.
