Cato Expert Available to Comment on White House AI Action Plan and Today’s Executive Orders

“On the positive end, the order includes a much-needed emphasis on the importance of innovation, notably the forthcoming effort to analyze federal rules to identify onerous regulations. Also notable is the renewed emphasis on open-source and related efforts to enable open-source developers.

The stated emphasis on AI diplomacy could be essential as America’s AI success depends on foreign market access. Finally, the elevated emphasis on cybersecurity ‑and specifically enabling cyber defense – is matched to the current state of risk.

The biggest error in the order is the use of government procurement power to shape model ideological bias. Not only is ‘objectivity’ elusive philosophically, but efforts to technically contain perceived bias have yet to work. This is also a mistake from a competitiveness standpoint. If this policy successfully shapes American models, we will lose international customers who won’t want models shaped by a foreign government’s whims.

Further, it erroneously attempts to recreate the failed AI moratorium through AI grants. The pot of AI funds is unlikely to be big enough to shape state regulations, so the net effect will not be harmonization or deregulation. What we can expect is funding decisions to be distracted from the best possible uses by ulterior motives.”