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Understanding the US ‘AI Bill of Rights’ – and how it can help keep AI Accountable

Last week, the US White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” along with several related agency actions. The document provides an important framework for how government, technology companies, and citizens can work together to ensure more accountable AI.

The need to resolve issues around the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become increasingly important for countries, citizens, and businesses over the last eight years. Approximately 60 countries now have National AI Strategies and many have, or are creating, policies which allow for responsible use of a technology which can bring huge benefits but, without adequate governance, can do significant harm to individuals and our society.

The Blueprint is 76 pages and includes many examples of AI use cases that the White House OSTP considers problematic. Importantly, the document clarifies that the Blueprint should only apply to automated systems that have the potential to meaningfully impact the American public’s rights, opportunities, or access to critical resources or services, generally excluding many industrial and/or operational applications of AI. The Blueprint expands on examples for use of AI in Lending, Human Resources, surveillance and other areas (which would also find a counterpart in the ‘high-risk’ use case framework of the forthcoming EU AI Act).

This article was originally published at the World Economic Forum.

The Boston Global Forum (BGF), in collaboration with the United Nations Centennial Initiative, released a major work entitled Remaking the World – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment.   More than twenty distinguished leaders, scholars, analysts, and thinkers put forth unprecedented approaches to the challenges before us. These include President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Governor Michael Dukakis, Father of Internet Vint Cerf, Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Harvard University Professors Joseph Nye and Thomas Patterson, MIT Professors Nazli Choucri and Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland, and Vice President of European Parliament Eva Kaili. The BGF introduced core concepts shaping pathbreaking international initiatives, notably, the Social Contract for the AI Age, an AI International Accord, the Global Alliance for Digital Governance, the AI World Society (AIWS) Ecosystem, and AIWS City.