Latest news with #CenterforAIStandardsandInnovation
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Administration To Rebrand Biden-Era Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute, Commerce Secretary Says At AI Honors: 'We're Not Going To Regulate It'
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a D.C. crowd this week that the Biden-era AI Safety Institute would be rebranded as the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, as a 'place where people voluntarily go to drive analysis and standards.' 'As we move from large language models to large quantitative models, and we add all these different things, you want a place to go,' Lutnick said. 'We say, has someone checked out this model? Is this a safe model? Is this a model that we understand? How do I do this? And we're not going to regulate it. We are going to enhance the voluntary models of what great American innovation is all about.' More from Deadline Trump Launches Punitive Biden Probe, New Travel Bans, But Still Silent On Elon Musk's 'Kill Bill' Attack On Agenda Trump Celebrity Supporters: Famous Folks In Favor Of The 47th President Former Biden White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre To Publish Book Explaining Her Affiliation Switch From Democrat To An Independent Lutnick's remarks came at the inaugural AI Honors this week, held by the Washington AI Network at the Waldorf Astoria. The rebrand reflects a more hands-off approach that the Trump administration has taken to AI, after President Joe Biden often addressed AI by spotlighting the need for guardrails around the technology, and lined up major AI companies to agree to a set of voluntary commitments for 'responsible innovation.' Biden signed an executive order in 2023 that directed the Department of Commerce to develop standards for authentication and watermarking, among other things, in the creation of a Safety Institute. Days after taking office, Trump rescinded Biden's executive order, placing an emphasis on deregulation. In his speech, Lutnick said that AI safety 'is sort of an opinion-based model. And the Commerce Department and NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, we do standards and we do most successfully cyber, the gold standard of cyber.' The Biden administration acknowledged that in many cases it would be left to Congress to pass laws to regulate AI technology. In entertainment, one of the more significant proposals is the No Fakes Act, which would give individuals a right to control their digital likeness, meaning that content creators would need permission to recreate celebrities and anyone else using AI. The Center for AI Standards and Innovation also will seek voluntary agreements 'with private sector AI developers and evaluators, and lead unclassified evaluations of AI capabilities that may pose risks to national security,' per a Commerce Department announcement. The ceremony on Tuesday honored Sen. Todd Young (R-IN); Rep. Jay Olbernolte (R-CA) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA); Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary; Patricia Falcone, deputy director for science and technology at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Ylli Bajraktari, president & CEO of SCSP and founder of AI + EXPO; and Booz Allen's Chief Technologist Joanna Guy, Space Llama Engineer Zane Price; and VP of AI Don Polaski. Alos honored was Father Paolo Benanti, Vatican adviser on AI ethics. The Washington AI Network was founded by Tammy Haddad. CNN anchor Sara Sidner emceed the event. In his speech, Lutnick also emphasized the need for the U.S. to remain the leader in AI, as he outlined parts of the administration's strategy to boost advanced manufacturing. 'The fact is that our adversaries are substantially behind us and we expect to keep them substantially behind us, but we want to bring our allies onto our side,' he said. Among other things, he talked of doubling the U.S. power capacity to meet the need for giant data centers. 'The power necessary to drive these data centers is awesome. It's awesome the amount of power they draw,' he said. 'And it can't be that the United States of America is balancing its citizens operating their refrigerator or a data center. That is just not a practical solution. So the practical solution would be to allow data center operators to build their own power generation sites adjacent to their data center.' Best of Deadline 'Stick' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The Apple TV+ Golf Series 'Nine Perfect Strangers' Season 2 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? 'Stick' Release Guide: When Do New Episodes Come Out?
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump administration cuts 'Safety' from AI Safety Institute
The Trump administration says it's reforming a Biden-era artificial intelligence safety institute, renaming and reformulating one of the only federal government departments dedicated to oversight of the burgeoning technology. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a news release Tuesday that the Trump administration would transform the former U.S. AI Safety Institute — which former President Joe Biden established in November 2023 — into the Center for AI Standards and Innovation. The reframing away from 'safety' is in line with the Trump administration's statements and actions signaling its belief that oversight efforts for AI companies could unnecessarily dull the United States' competitive edge in the space. 'For far too long, censorship and regulations have been used under the guise of national security. Innovators will no longer be limited by these standards,' Lutnick said in the release. 'CAISI will evaluate and enhance U.S. innovation of these rapidly developing commercial AI systems while ensuring they remain secure to our national security standards.' The U.S. AI Safety Institute was created to evaluate and test AI models and create standards for safety and security. It also formed a consortium on AI safety, which was made up of over 200 members, including OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic. Although it's unclear whether the transformation will mean any major changes to the institute's operations, the move appears to reflect the Trump administration's 'pro-innovation' approach to deregulating AI technology. Unlike Biden's executive order on AI and the former institute, the reformed center is set to focus on additional aspects like evaluating 'potential security vulnerabilities and malign foreign influence arising from use of adversaries' AI systems, including the possibility of backdoors and other covert, malicious behavior,' as well as 'guard against burdensome and unnecessary regulation of American technologies by foreign governments.' In January, the Chinese-created AI app DeepSeek heightened national security concerns around AI with its latest release, which made waves with its advancements. President Donald Trump said the app 'should be a wake-up call' about the prospect of international competition for American tech companies. Lawmakers introduced a bill to ban DeepSeek from government devices, and the Navy advised its members not to use it 'in any capacity.' The move to reform the institute appears to have been in development for a while. Reuters reported this year that no one from the U.S. AI Safety Institute's staff would attend an AI summit in Paris in February alongside Vice President JD Vance. The institute's inaugural director, Elizabeth Kelly, also announced she would step down that month. In his speech at the summit, Vance echoed Lutnick's sentiments, saying, 'We need international regulatory regimes that fosters the creation of AI technology rather than strangles it.' He also spoke about how he believes AI should be free from 'ideological bias.' Since he returned to office, Trump has made it clear that his administration wants to embrace the expansion of AI. Within his first week, Trump announced the creation of the $500 billion Stargate initiative in collaboration with OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, which aims to make the United States a world leader in AI. Trump also signed an executive order on AI in his first week in office that focuses on easing regulations on AI technology and revoking 'existing AI policies and directives that act as barriers to American AI innovation.' Biden's executive order on AI, which focused on safety and privacy standards for the technology, has been scrapped from the White House's website. This article was originally published on
NBC News
4 days ago
- Business
- NBC News
Trump administration cuts 'Safety' from AI Safety Institute
The Trump administration says it's reforming a Biden-era artificial intelligence safety institute, renaming and reformulating one of the only federal government departments dedicated to oversight of the burgeoning technology. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a news release Tuesday that the Trump administration would transform the former U.S. AI Safety Institute — which former President Joe Biden established in November 2023 — into the Center for AI Standards and Innovation. The reframing away from 'safety' is in line with the Trump administration's statements and actions signaling its belief that oversight efforts for AI companies could unnecessarily dull the United States' competitive edge in the space. 'For far too long, censorship and regulations have been used under the guise of national security. Innovators will no longer be limited by these standards,' Lutnick said in the release. 'CAISI will evaluate and enhance U.S. innovation of these rapidly developing commercial AI systems while ensuring they remain secure to our national security standards.' The U.S. AI Safety Institute was created to evaluate and test AI models and create standards for safety and security. It also formed a consortium on AI safety, which was made up of over 200 members, including OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic. Although it's unclear whether the transformation will mean any major changes to the institute's operations, the move appears to reflect the Trump administration's 'pro-innovation' approach to deregulating AI technology. Unlike Biden's executive order on AI and the former institute, the reformed center is set to focus on additional aspects like evaluating 'potential security vulnerabilities and malign foreign influence arising from use of adversaries' AI systems, including the possibility of backdoors and other covert, malicious behavior,' as well as 'guard against burdensome and unnecessary regulation of American technologies by foreign governments.' In January, the Chinese-created AI app DeepSeek heightened national security concerns around AI with its latest release, which made waves with its advancements. President Donald Trump said the app 'should be a wake-up call' about the prospect of international competition for American tech companies. Lawmakers introduced a bill to ban DeepSeek from government devices, and the Navy advised its members not to use it 'in any capacity.' The move to reform the institute appears to have been in development for a while. Reuters reported this year that no one from the U.S. AI Safety Institute's staff would attend an AI summit in Paris in February alongside Vice President JD Vance. The institute's inaugural director, Elizabeth Kelly, also announced she would step down that month. In his speech at the summit, Vance echoed Lutnick's sentiments, saying, 'We need international regulatory regimes that fosters the creation of AI technology rather than strangles it.' He also spoke about how he believes AI should be free from 'ideological bias.' Since he returned to office, Trump has made it clear that his administration wants to embrace the expansion of AI. Within his first week, Trump announced the creation of the $500 billion Stargate initiative in collaboration with OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, which aims to make the United States a world leader in AI. Trump also signed an executive order on AI in his first week in office that focuses on easing regulations on AI technology and revoking 'existing AI policies and directives that act as barriers to American AI innovation.' Biden's executive order on AI, which focused on safety and privacy standards for the technology, has been scrapped from the White House's website.
