The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy on
Friday launched a fact-finding mission to look at facial recognition and other
biometric tools used to identify people or assess their emotional or mental
states and character.
Biden's chief science adviser, Eric Lander, and the deputy
director for science and society, Alondra Nelson, also published an opinion
piece in Wired magazine detailing the need to develop new safeguards against
faulty and harmful uses of AI that can unfairly discriminate against people or
violate their privacy.
“Enumerating the rights is just a first step," they
wrote. “What might we do to protect them? Possibilities include the federal
government refusing to buy software or technology products that fail to respect
these rights, requiring federal contractors to use technologies that adhere to
this ‘bill of rights,' or adopting new laws and regulations to fill gaps."
This is not the first time the Biden administration has
voiced concerns about harmful uses of AI, but it's one of its clearest steps
toward doing something about it.
European regulators have already taken measures to rein in
the riskiest AI applications that could threaten people's safety or rights.
European Parliament lawmakers took a step this week in favour of banning
biometric mass surveillance, though none of the bloc's nations are bound to
Tuesday's vote that called for new rules blocking law enforcement from scanning
facial features in public spaces.
Political leaders in Western democracies have said they want
to balance a desire to tap into AI's economic and societal potential while
addressing growing concerns about the reliability of tools that can track and
profile individuals and make recommendations about who gets access to jobs,
loans and educational opportunities.
A federal document filed Friday seeks public comments from
AI developers, experts and anyone who has been affected by biometric data
collection.
The software trade association BSA, backed by companies such
as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce, said it welcomed the White House's
attention to combating AI bias but is pushing for an approach that would
require companies to do their own assessment of the risks of their AI
applications and then show how they will mitigate those risks.
“It enables the good that everybody sees in AI but minimises
the risk that it's going to lead to discrimination and perpetuate bias,"
said Aaron Cooper, the group's vice president of global policy.