On May 15, the Bipartisan Senate Artificial Intelligence (AI) Working Group (“Working Group”) released a report titled “Driving U.S. Innovation in Artificial Intelligence.” The 31 page report, available here, outlines the benefits of AI, as well as a detailed policy roadmap for navigating the risks with this technology. The Working Group, made up of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD), Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Todd Young (R-IN), released the anticipated roadmap after gaining insights from educational briefings and forums held in the last year.

The AI policy roadmap features eight priority areas:

1. Supporting U.S. Innovation in AI: The Working Group outlines support for emergency appropriations to reach $32 billion in annual non-defense spending on AI.

2. AI and the Workforce: The Working Group details the need for adequate training programs to upskill the workforce in addition to ensuring key stakeholders are engaged in job displacement conversations and policymaking efforts.

3. High Impact Uses of AI: The Working Group encourages consideration of whether there is adequate enforcement of existing laws when applied to high-risk AI use cases and supports legislative action to address enforcement gaps.

4. Elections and Democracy: The Working Group recognizes the need to address the impact of deepfakes and other nonconsensual AI-generated content on elections.

5. Privacy and Liability: The Working Group outlines steps to address whether, and when, AI developers and deployers should be held accountable for harms caused by their AI models. The Working Group also calls for comprehensive national data privacy legislation.

6. Transparency, Explainability, Intellectual Property and Copyright: The Working Group identifies policies to enhance transparency, particularly around disclosing the use of AI in the workplace and providing digital content provenance information.

7. Safeguarding Against AI Risks: The Working Group encourages the development of standard practices for risk testing and evaluation of AI models, and outlines support for a “capabilities-focused risk-based” risk regime.

8. National Security: The Working Group remains sensitive to the unique intersection between AI and national security, which requires collaboration and innovation to remain ahead of adversaries and deter emerging threats. The Working Group identifies areas for legislation and investment to augment research and maintain U.S. global competitiveness.

Specific to the federal workforce, the working group supports the Workforce Data for Analyzing and Tracking Automation Act (S. 2138), to “record the effect of automation on the workforce and measure those trends over time, including job displacement, the number of new jobs created, and the shifting in-demand skills.”

To view the full report, click here.