Biden administration says we need a Bill of Rights for AI

By now, stories about racist AI and facial recognition leading to false arrests have become way too commonplace.

Those examples of bias aren’t even getting into implications in other areas of our lives, such as with the issues of healthcare algorithms discounting certain diseases in marginalized groups. The Biden administration is aware of the impact these evolving technologies are having. In fact, in a recent op-ed published in Wired, the White House made mention of those examples and more while calling for a “Bill of Rights for AI.”

“Powerful technologies should be required to respect our democratic values and abide by the central tenet that everyone should be treated fairly,” reads the piece written by White House Office of Science and Technology Policy science advisor Eric Lander and its deputy director for science and society Alondra Nelson. “Codifying these ideas can help ensure that.”

Lander and Nelson point out that there really are no rules or safeguards governing the uses of AI technology. The two point out that there are certainly issues where the tech is being abused but there’s also a huge problem with unintentional biases.

For example, a company selling its facial recognition system to law enforcement may not intend for its product to falsely identify an innocent person as a perpetrator, but its creation is doing so. The fact that developers unintentionally used flawed data to rush out a product doesn’t really matter much to the people who face real world harm as a result.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has officially put out a “public request for information” for experts who work in the field or utilize AI technologies. They are also urging anyone who’d like to have a say about the matter to reach out via email to [email protected].

In its summary of the issue, Axios pointed out that the U.S. Bill of Rights, a 230-year-old document that’s 652 words, is still the subject of tenacious debate.

The White House team acknowledges that it’s going to be a challenge though. Yet AI and facial recognition technology need to be held to a standard.

“Developing a bill of rights for an AI-powered world won’t be easy, but it’s critical,” they write.