MRC Free Speech America update summary: The Trump-led Department of Commerce announced on May 12 that it had “initiated a rescission of the Biden Administration’s AI Diffusion Rule.” The move follows President Trump’s executive orders rolling back regulations from the Biden era on AI and formalizes that agenda by invoking the Administrative Procedures Act to dismantle the previous administration's rules. However, instead of dismantling the U.S. AI Safety Institute (AISI), the Trump administration simply rebranded it as the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI). According to Forbes, "it’s very difficult to tell just how much the new body will differ from the old one."
The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #7: The Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence
Type of Censorship: Policy or Rulemaking
Agencies Involved:
- Department of Commerce
- National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST)
- Executive Office of the President
- White House Office
Summary:
The Biden administration’s highly touted “Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence” was written to favor censorship-obsessed Google and its vendetta against open source artificial intelligence (AI).
Biden issued the Order with great fanfare on Oct. 30, 2023. Largely crafted by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, it directed various government agencies to issue studies and rulemaking related to artificial intelligence. Most significantly, the order incentivized a 270-day across-the-government pause on any research or development related to the critical issue of whether AI should be open source or closed source. This research pause enabled Google’s censorship-heavy closed-source AI time to catch up to its open source AI competitors like OpenAI and Meta.
Open source AI permits anyone to view the biases and censorship embedded in its algorithms, thus allowing modifications to better permit free exchange of information. Since Gemini is closed source, its algorithm — which is infamous for censoring conservative and pro-American ideals — can be neither examined nor improved, even by those who license it.
Using the authority delegated to her under the order, Raimondo created an AI Safety Institute (AISI) in the National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST). The “goal” of the Institute was “developing and disseminating AI safety practices” for restricting the information AI algorithms provided. Such a policy necessitates subjective determinations on what speech to favor. To craft this AI policy, Raimondo consulted Reid Hoffman, a billionaire tech mogul infamous for his obsession with censorship and lawfare.
Key Individuals:
- Joe Biden, President of the United States
- Mara Campbell, AISI Acting Chief Operating Officer
- Paul Christiano, AISI Head of AI Safety
- Elizabeth Kelly, AISI Director
- Mark Latonero, AISI Head of International Engagement
- Laurie E. Locascio, NIST Director / Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards & Technology
- Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce
- Adam Russell, AISI Chief Vision Officer
- Jeff Zients, White House Chief of Staff
