Biden’s AI Executive Order, 90 Days On

The White House on Monday touted progress in the area of artificial intelligence, saying that federal hiring has surged and funding is flowing to regional AI research efforts while the federal government is preparing new regulations for the AI sector.

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U.S. President Joe Biden in late October signed an expansive executive order meant to position the United States as an AI leader (see: White House Issues Sweeping Executive Order to Secure AI).

In the 90 days since then, the departments of State and Transportation, the National Science Foundation and the Office of Management and Budget have invested in AI innovation and made new efforts to attract and train workers in AI, the White House said Monday.

The announcement came on the same day that the Department of Commerce released a proposed regulation that would require infrastructure-as-a-service providers to notify the federal government when they’re in a transaction that would allow a foreign person to train a large AI model with capabilities that could potentially be used in malicious activity online. The proposal says Commerce will later define the set of technical conditions an AI model must possess in order to qualify for the reporting requirement.

The executive order already requires developers of advanced artificial intelligence models to notify the government and share the results of red-team safety tests.

The White House said agencies assigned tasks by the October order are moving faster than anticipated. Nine departments, including Defense, Transportation and Health and Human Services, completed risk assessments on AI’s use within critical infrastructure. Those assessments will “be the basis for continued federal action,” the White House said.

The AI and Tech Talent Task Force launched an effort to accelerate the hiring of AI professionals across the federal government, including through a large-scale hiring action for data scientists. The Office of Personnel Management made hiring AI talent for federal agencies more flexible. Talent programs, including the Presidential Innovation Fellows, U.S. Digital Corps and U.S. Digital Service, have scaled up hiring for AI talent this year.

The National Science Foundation launched a pilot project, dubbed the National AI Research Resource Pilot, to set up a national infrastructure meant to make AI computing power, data, software and research more accessible.

The NSF also granted $160 million over 10 years to a regional project located in North Carolina for research in regenerative medicine.