WASHINGTON, June 9, 2023 – Citing threats from China, two Democratic and one Republican senator have introduced the Global Technology Leadership Act that would create an Office of Global Competition Analysis.

The new office would be tasked with assessing U.S. leadership in science, technology and innovation in advanced manufacturing, workforce development, supply chain resilience and research and development initiatives.

“We cannot afford to lose our competitive edge in strategic technologies like semiconductors, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence to competitors like China,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., one of the three sponsors, together with Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and Todd Young, R-Indiana.

On a periodic basis, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, presidential assistants for economic policy, national security and the heads of such agencies of OSTP and the White House deem appropriate would determine the priorities of the office.

Bennet said that the office’s assessments would inform policymakers and help enhance American leadership in strategic innovation.

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2023 – A State Department official is calling for a United States-led global coalition to set artificial intelligence regulations.

“This is the exact moment where the US needs to show leadership,” Jennifer Bachus, assistant secretary of state for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, said last week on a panel discussing international principles on responsible AI. “This is a shared problem and we need a shared solution.”

She opposed pitting the U.S. and China against one another in the AI race, saying it would “ultimately always lead to a problem.” Instead, Bachus called for an alliance of the United States, the European Union, and Japan to take the lead in creating a legal framework to govern artificial intelligence.

The introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT earlier this year sent tech companies in a rush to create their own generative AI chatbot systems. Competition between tech giants has heated up with the recent release of Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing chatbot. Similar to ChatGPT in terms of its vast language model, these chatbots can also access data from the internet to answer queries or carry out tasks.

Experts are concerned about the dangers posed by this unprecedented technology. On Tuesday, hundreds of tech experts and industry leaders, including OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, signed a one-sentence statement calling the existential threats presented by A.I. a “global priority” on par with “pandemics and nuclear conflicts.” Earlier in March, Elon Musk joined several AI experts signing another open letter urging for a pause on “giant AI experiments.”

Despite the pressing concerns about generative AI, there is rising criticism that policymakers are slow to put forth adequate legislation for this nascent technology. Panelists argued this is partly because legislators have difficulty understanding technological innovations. Michelle Giuda, director of Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy, argued for a more proactive contribution from the academic community and tech firms.

“There is a risk of relying too much on the government to regulate ahead of where innovation is going and providing the clarity that’s needed,” said Giuda. “We all know that the government isn’t going to stay ahead of the innovation curve, but this is an ongoing dialogue between tech companies, governments and civil society.”

Microsoft’s Chief Responsible AI Officer, Natasha Crampton, agreed that developers and experts in the field must play a central role in crafting and implementing legislation pertaining to artificial intelligence. She did, however, mention that businesses using AI technology should also share part of the responsibility.

“It is our job to make sure that safety and responsibility is baked into these systems from the very beginning,” said Crampton. “Making sure that you are really holding developers to very high standards but also deployers of technology in some aspects as well.”

Earlier in May, Sens. Michael Bennet, D-C.O., and Peter Welch, D-VT. introduced a bill to establish a government agency to oversee artificial intelligence. The Joe Biden administration also announced $140 million in funding to establish seven new National AI Research institutions, increasing the total number of institutions in the nation to 25.

WASHINGTON, May 30, 2023 – Artificial intelligence will be required to effectively manage and optimize a more complex energy grid, said experts at a United States Energy Association event Tuesday. 

Renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and power walls add large amounts of energy storage to the grid, said Jeremy Renshaw, senior technical executive at the Electric Power Research Institute. Utility companies are required to manage many bidirectional resources that both store and use energy, he said. 

Learn more about the smart grid, clean energy and the U.S.-China tech race at Broadband Breakfast’s Made in America Summit on June 27.

“The grid of the future is going to be significantly more complicated,” said Renshaw. Having humans operate the grid will be economically infeasible, he continued, claiming that AI will drastically improve operations. 

The ability to balance the grid’s supply and demand in real time will become extremely complex with the adoption of these new technologies, added Marc Spieler, leader for global business development at AI hardware and software supplier, Nvidia. 

Utility companies will need to redirect traffic in real time to support the incoming demand, he said. AI enables real time redirecting of traffic and an understanding of the capacity of the grid at any point, said Spieler.  

Moreover, AI can identify what changes need to be made to avoid waste by over generating electricity and black outs by under generating, he said. AI also has the capability to predict and plan for extreme weather that can be hazardous to electrical infrastructure and can identify bottleneck areas where infrastructure needs to be updated, said Spieler. 

Human management will still be required to ensure that systems are operated responsibly, said John Savage, professor of computer science at Brown University. Utility companies should avoid allowing AI to make unsupervised decisions especially for unforeseen scenarios, he said. 

The panelists envision AI as a decision support mechanism to help humans make more informed decisions, agreed the panelists. The technology will replace jobs that deal with mundane and repetitive tasks but will ultimately create more jobs in new positions, said Renshaw. 

This comes several weeks after industry experts urged Congress to implement federal AI regulation.