SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
ai bill of rights
Trump AI Order Another Betrayal of Fundamental Human Rights
The president is promoting a future in which accountability for the impact of artificial intelligence systems is further out of reach.
Dec 17, 2025
Last week, President Trump signed an executive order that proposes to challenge and dismantle a range of “cumbersome” artificial intelligence (AI) laws at state and city level in the US and replace them with a not yet defined national AI regulatory framework.
The move is supposedly an effort to “sustain and enhance the United States’ global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI.” But at what cost?
By attempting to void existing regulatory frameworks, the Trump administration is promoting a future in which many components of society are reliant on AI, but where accountability for the impact of these systems is further out of reach.
In an ideal world, a national regulatory framework governing AI would expand safeguards, transparency, and access to justice for people across the US who are harmed by algorithmic and automated systems, in a consistent and equitable way. But in the context of this administration, the reality is likely to be a regulatory vacuum.
Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has ripped up previous federal policies governing discriminatory AI, removed safeguards across government-held data, and given tech companies expansive access to sensitive personal federal data. It has also increased its financial and political stakes in the tech industry and appointed an industry leader with a personal interest in deregulation to oversee the government’s approach to AI.
We know that integrating algorithms and automation to any process creates particular risks to human rights. AI systems have led to the wrong person being imprisoned, workers mistakenly fired, and lives ended too soon, and without adequate accountability for the companies behind the tech. It is imperative that this technology is created and deployed with the utmost care.
Trump’s executive order won’t just impact AI either. It threatens to rescind federal support for internet connectivity infrastructure via the BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Deployment) Program, and would withhold funding to states that do not revoke AI accountability laws. This could significantly restrict equitable access to affordable, reliable broadband internet services for many.
There are worthwhile, evidence-driven efforts to secure accountability for AI injustices. The administration could, for example, adopt the AI Bill of Rights. But rather than increase steps toward accountability, this executive order marks yet another step in the Trump administration’s erosion of rights.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Godfather of AI' Demands Strict Regulations to Stop Technology From Wiping Out Humanity
"The only thing that can force those big companies to do more research on safety is government regulation."
Dec 28, 2024
Warning that the pace of development of artificial intelligence is "much faster" than he anticipated and is taking place in the absence of far-reaching regulations, the computer scientist often called the "Godfather of AI" on Friday said he believes chances are growing that AI could wipe out humanity.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's "Today" program, Geoffrey Hinton said there is a "10% to 20%" chance AI could lead to human extinction in the next three decades.
Previously Hinton had said he saw a 10% chance of that happening.
"We've never had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before," Hinton explained. "And how many examples do you know of a more intelligent thing being controlled by a less intelligent thing? There are very few examples. There's a mother and baby. Evolution put a lot of work into allowing the baby to control the mother, but that's about the only example I know of."
Hinton, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics this year for his research into machine learning and AI, left his job at Google last year, saying he wanted to be able to speak out more about the dangers of unregulated AI.
"Just leaving it to the profit motive of large companies is not going to be sufficient to make sure they develop it safely."
He has warned that AI chatbots could be used by authoritarian leaders to manipulate the public, and said last year that "the kind of intelligence we're developing is very different from the intelligence we have."
On Friday, Hinton said he is particularly worried that "the invisible hand" of the market will not keep humans safe from a technology that surpasses their intelligence, and called for strict regulations of AI.
"Just leaving it to the profit motive of large companies is not going to be sufficient to make sure they develop it safely," said Hinton.
More than 120 bills have been proposed in the U.S. Congress to regulate AI robocalls, the technology's role in national security, and other issues, while the Biden administration has taken some action to rein in AI development.
An executive order calling for "Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence" said that "harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks." President-elect Donald Trump is expected to rescind the order.
The White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights calls for safe and effective systems, algorithmic discrimination protections, data privacy, notice and explanation when AI is used, and the ability to opt out of automated systems.
But the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act was a deemed a "failure" by rights advocates this year, after industry lobbying helped ensure the law included numerous loopholes and exemptions for law enforcement and migration authorities.
"The only thing that can force those big companies to do more research on safety," said Hinton on Friday, "is government regulation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressives Praise New US Guidelines for Government AI Use
"Today, the OMB's guidance takes us one step further down the path of facing a technology-rich future that begins to address its harms," said Maya Wiley.
Mar 28, 2024
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Thursday a Office of Management and Budget guidance regarding how the federal government will utilize new artificial intelligence tools going forward, and it received praise from some progressives.
The guidance focuses on how federal agencies can benefit from utilizing AI tools but also the risks involved in putting them to use.
"The order directed sweeping action to strengthen AI safety and security, protect Americans' privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers and workers, promote innovation and competition, advance American leadership around the world, and more," says a White House fact sheet.
At the first-ever Global AI Summit last year, I laid out our vision for a future where AI advances the public interest.
To help build that future, I am announcing our first government-wide policy to promote the safe, secure, and responsible use of AI. https://t.co/6NPXLWn8Oc
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) March 28, 2024
The guidance says all federal agencies will now have a senior leader in charge of the use of AI tools, agencies will have to publicly report how they're using AI, agencies will be required to create "concrete safeguards" to protect the rights of citizens, and more.
Damon T. Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called it "a significant step to implement meaningful safeguards on the government's use of artificial intelligence."
Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said it's necessary to make sure technology "serves us," rather than "harms us," and it should "advance our democracy rather than disrupt it."
"Today, the OMB's guidance takes us one step further down the path of facing a technology-rich future that begins to address its harms," Wiley said. "The guidance puts rights-protecting principles of the White House's historic AI Bill of Rights into practice across agencies, and it is an important step in advancing civil rights protections in AI deployment at federal agencies. It extends existing civil rights protections, helping to bring them into the era of AI."
The Biden administration released an AI Bill of Rights blueprint in 2022, which is an outline for how new AI tools should be utilized and developed to protect consumers. It also secured a voluntary AI safeguard agreement with seven major AI developers in July of last year.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Only a First Step': Digital Rights Defenders Welcome Biden AI Order—But Say More Must Be Done
"As much as the White House can do on its own, those measures are no substitute for agency regulation and legislative action," said one leading consumer advocate.
Oct 30, 2023
While welcoming U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order aimed at setting standards for artificial intelligence safety and security, digital rights campaigners on Monday also stressed it's only a first step and that federal regulation and congressional action are needed if the directive is to be effective.
"AI is all around us," Biden said before signing the order. "To realize the promise of AI and avoid the risk, we need to govern this technology."
To that end, the president's executive order—which he says must be backed by congressional legislation—requires "developers of the most powerful AI systems" to inform the federal government of safety test results and other key data. The National Institute of Standards and Technology will also be tasked with drafting AI safety and security standards.
"It's hard to say that this document, on its own, represents much progress."
The order also aims to prevent AI from engineering dangerous biological materials "by developing strong new standards for biological synthesis screening," while directing the U.S. Department of Commerce to "develop guidance for content authentication and watermarking to clearly label AI-generated content," an effort to protect consumer from fraud and deception.
Caitlin Seeley George, campaigns and managing director at the advocacy group Fight for the Future, called Biden's order "a positive step."
"However, it's hard to say that this document, on its own, represents much progress," she asserted.
Seeley George continued:
Agencies like the [Federal Trade Commission] have already taken some action to rein in abuses of AI, and this executive order could supercharge such efforts, unlocking the federal government's ability to put critical guardrails in place to address harmful impacts of AI. But there's also the possibility that agencies do the bare minimum, a choice that would render this executive order toothless and waste another year of our lives while vulnerable people continue to lose housing and job opportunities, experience increased surveillance at school and in public, and be unjustly targeted by law enforcement, all due to biased and discriminatory AI.
"It's impossible to ignore the gaping hole in this order when it comes to law enforcement agencies' use of AI," said Seeley George. "Some of the most harmful uses of AI are currently being perpetrated by law enforcement, from predictive policing algorithms and pre-trial assessments to biometric surveillance systems like facial recognition."
Noting that AI systems used by police "deliver discriminatory outcomes, particularly for Black people and other people of color," Seeley George added that "we cannot stress enough that if the Biden administration fails to put real limits on how law enforcement uses AI, their effort will ultimately fail in its goal of addressing the biggest threats that AI poses to our civil rights."
Maria Langholz, director of communications at Demand Progress, said in a statement that the advocacy group applauds Biden "for his leadership in advancing the national conversation on comprehensive AI regulation."
Langholz continued:
Given the long history of Big Tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon abusing their monopoly power in areas from cloud computing to worker surveillance, Americans should be deeply concerned about corporate consolidation of AI technologies. We have already seen the tech giants begin to sweep up small innovators, and we expect that this will continue in the absence of a major intervention.
"In the coming months, Demand Progress will work to ensure the Biden administration and Congress' emerging AI frameworks have teeth to meaningfully rein in Big Tech corporate consolidation, to thoughtfully monitor and restrain military and law enforcement applications, and to protect against undue surveillance and consumer privacy violations," she added.
At the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, president Robert Weissman said in a statement that "today's executive order is a vital step by the Biden administration to begin the long process of regulating rapidly advancing AI technology—but it's only a first step."
The order, Weissman continued, "builds on the White House's Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the administration's important move last week to ensure its trade policy does not preempt AI and technology-related policymaking."
The White House said Monday that it will take additional action including,
- Providing "clear guidance to landlords, federal benefits programs, and federal contractors to keep AI algorithms from being used to exacerbate discrimination;"
- Addressing algorithmic discrimination "through training, technical assistance, and coordination between the Department of Justice and federal civil rights offices"; and
- Ensuring fairness in the criminal justice system "by developing best practices on the use of AI" through every stage of the law enforcement, sentencing, carceral, and post-incarceration process.
"As much as the White House can do on its own, those measures are no substitute for agency regulation and legislative action," Weissman added. "Preventing the foreseeable and unforeseeable threats from AI requires agencies and Congress take the baton from the White House and act now to shape the future of AI—rather than letting a handful of corporations determine our future, at potentially great peril."
Following Biden's signing of the executive order, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that "executive orders are limited, and the president and I agree we need legislation."
Schumer—who has hosted two recent AI forums—added that a bipartisan working group would meet with Biden Tuesday "to move forward on AI legislatively" with "urgency" and "humility."
"This is about the hardest thing I've attempted to undertake legislatively," he said.
The executive order comes during preparations for a global AI safety summit in the United Kingdom next month, ahead of which two dozen experts warned that policymakers must act now to prevent "societal-scale" damage from the technology.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Markey, Jayapal Lead Call for Biden to Include 'AI Bill of Rights' in Executive Order
"By turning the AI Bill of Rights from a nonbinding statement of principles into federal policy, your administration would send a clear message to both private actors and federal regulators."
Oct 11, 2023
Amid the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence systems, a pair of Democratic U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday led more than a dozen of their colleagues in urging President Joe Biden to issue an executive order making the White House's "AI Bill of Rights" official federal policy.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) spearheaded a letter to Biden asserting that "the federal government's commitment to the AI Bill of Rights would show that fundamental rights will not take a back seat in the AI era."
"By turning the AI Bill of Rights from a nonbinding statement of principles into federal policy, your administration would send a clear message to both private actors and federal regulators: AI systems must be developed with guardrails," the letter states. "Doing so would also strengthen your administration's efforts to advance racial equity and support underserved communities, building on important work from previous executive orders."
The lawmakers asserted that implementing the AI Bill of Rights is "a crucial step in developing an ethical framework for the federal government's role" in artificial intelligence. They stressed that five principles—"safe and effective systems; algorithmic discrimination protections; data privacy; notice and explanation; and human alternatives, consideration, and fallback"—must be the core of the policy.
The letter further argues that "implementing these principles will not only protect communities harmed by these technologies, it will also help inform ongoing policy conversations in Congress and show clear leadership on the global stage."
In July, the White House secured voluntary risk management commitments from seven leading AI companies, a move praised by campaigners and experts—even as they stressed the need for further action from Congress and federal regulators.
Earlier this year, Markey and Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) reintroduced the Algorithmic Justice and Online Platform Transparency Act, which would prohibit Big Tech from using black-box algorithms that drive discrimination and inequality.
Jayapal, Markey, and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) in March led the reintroduction of the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, which would stop the government from using facial recognition and other biometric technologies, which they said "pose significant privacy and civil liberties issues and disproportionately harm marginalized communities."
Wednesday's letter came as the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen urged the Federal Election Commission to officially affirm that so-called "deepfakes" in U.S. political campaign communications are illegal under existing legislation proscribing fraudulent representation.
The lawmakers' call also comes just weeks after Public Citizen warned that Big Tech is creating and deploying AI systems "that deceptively mimic human behavior to aggressively sell their products and services, dispense dubious medical and mental health advice, and trap people in psychologically dependent, potentially toxic relationships with machines."
Keep ReadingShow Less
As White House Unveils Plan, A Fresh Call to Halt 'Runaway Corporate AI'
"President Biden should call for, and Congress should legislate, a moratorium on the deployment of new generative AI technologies," Public Citizen's Robert Weissman argued.
May 04, 2023
As the White House on Thursday unveiled a plan meant to promote "responsible American innovation in artificial intelligence," a leading U.S. consumer advocate added his voice to the growing number of experts calling for a moratorium on the development and deployment of advanced AI technology.
"Today's announcement from the White House is a useful step forward, but much more is needed to address the threats of runaway corporate AI," Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement.
"But we also need more aggressive measures," Weissman asserted. "President Biden should call for, and Congress should legislate, a moratorium on the deployment of new generative AI technologies, to remain in effect until there is a robust regulatory framework in place to address generative AI's enormous risks."
The White House says its AI plan builds on steps the Biden administration has taken "to promote responsible innovation."
"These include the landmark Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and related executive actions announced last fall, as well as the AI Risk Management Framework and a roadmap for standing up a National AI Research Resource released earlier this year," the administration said.
The White House plan includes $140 million in National Science Foundation funding for seven new national AI research institutes—there are already 25 such facilities—that "catalyze collaborative efforts across institutions of higher education, federal agencies, industry, and others to pursue transformative AI advances that are ethical, trustworthy, responsible, and serve the public good."
The new plan also includes "an independent commitment from leading AI developers, including Anthropic, Google, Hugging Face, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Stability AI, to participate in a public evaluation of AI systems."
Representatives of some of those companies including Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, and OpenAI—creator of the popular ChatGPT chatbot—met with Vice President Kamala Harris and other administration officials at the White House on Thursday. According to The New York Times, President Joe Biden "briefly" dropped in on the meeting.
"AI is one of today's most powerful technologies, with the potential to improve people's lives and tackle some of society's biggest challenges. At the same time, AI has the potential to dramatically increase threats to safety and security, infringe civil rights and privacy, and erode public trust and faith in democracy," Harris said in a statement.
"The private sector has an ethical, moral, and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products," she added.
Thursday's White House meeting and plan come amid mounting concerns over the potential dangers posed by artificial intelligence on a range of issues, including military applications, life-and-death healthcare decisions, and impacts on the labor force.
In late March, tech leaders and researchers led an open letter signed by more than 27,000 experts, scholars, and others urging "all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4."
Noting that AI developers are "locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one—not even their creators—can understand, predict, or reliably control," the letter asks:
Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?
"Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders," the signers asserted. "Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable."
Last month, Public Citizen argued that "until meaningful government safeguards are in place to protect the public from the harms of generative AI, we need a pause."
"These systems demonstrate capabilities in question answering, and the generation of text, image, and code unimagined a decade ago, and they outperform the state of the art on many benchmarks, old and new," the group said in a report. "However, they are prone to hallucination, routinely biased, and can be tricked into serving nefarious aims, highlighting the complicated ethical challenges associated with their deployment."
According to the annual AI Index Report published last month by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, nearly three-quarters of researchers believe artificial intelligence "could soon lead to revolutionary social change," while 36% worry that AI decisions "could cause nuclear-level catastrophe."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy