#ai-policy

#ai-policy

Google CEO Sundar Pichai was right when he said that while AI companies aspire to create AGI (artificial general intelligence), what we have right now is more like AJI-artificial jagged intelligence. What Pichai meant by this is that today's AI is brilliant at some things, including some tasks that even human experts find difficult, while also performing poorly at some tasks that a human would find relatively easy.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday that will create new transparency measures for large AI companies, including public disclosure of security protocols and reports of critical safety incidents. Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said Senate Bill 53 will create "commonsense guardrails" to ensure groundbreaking innovations don't sacrifice safety and transparency amid the rapid growth of AI technologies.

At a recent televised dinner at the White House, Big Tech executives profusely thanked Donald Trump for unleashing "American innovation," while the president, in turn, praised Big Tech for "investing billions in the country." This orchestration of Big Tech executives kissing the ring was more than a display of how tech oligarchy has become the new normal. It was a dramatized, Gilded Age-type demonstration of Trump's AI Action Plan, which grants Big Tech the unfettered ability to expand AI infrastructure.

"The Democrats should say our vision is AI that actually helps tackle the economic divides. ... our job as politicians should be to make sure that the AI future is one that has the economic future of every family and community,"

"I have many concerns about the AI Executive Order signed yesterday by President Trump," Taylor Greene wrote on X-formerly-Twitter, the day after Trump's " Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government" executive order. "My deep concerns are that the EO [executive order] demands rapid AI expansion with little to no guardrails and breaks," the Georgia representative continued. "This needs a careful and wise approach. The AI EO takes the opposite."

There will be lots of questions about how AI is actually changing the labor market. The lesson over and over again has been AI arrives, it becomes such a big deal, but it changes all of the industries it touches,

It's unclear how Melania's initiative will follow her goals of protecting children from the harms of AI or equipping them for a workforce shaped by the technology. However, my source in the industry tells me the first lady's involvement is expected to lead to "big commitments from a bunch of these companies" beyond the multibillion-dollar investment figures they've already promised the Trump administration.

In documents reviewed by Nextgov/FCW, the proposed regulatory sandbox program created within OSTP would allow participating AI companies to receive temporary exemption from external AI regulations. These temporary waivers would be available for "one or more covered provisions of an applicable agency in order to test, experiment, or temporarily provide to consumers artificial intelligence products or services or artificial intelligence development methods on a limited basis without being subject to the enforcement, licensing, or authorization requirements of such covered provisions."

Washington's tech landscape has been reshaped by a whirlwind of political change, regulatory reversals, and an AI gold rush. President Trump's takeover of the Federal Trade Commission is seeking to combat "tech censorship," while the Defense Department's $1.8 billion AI investment has contractors racing to capitalize on the government's artificial-intelligence ambitions-even as some industry giants face federal scrutiny. The AI industry has been busy lobbying Congress to set an innovation-first agenda, with lighter regulations versus restrictive oversight. But some company heads are calling for guardrails.

You and your policies are really helping a lot,

President Donald Trump convened some of Silicon Valley's most influential figures Thursday evening at the White House, hosting a high-profile dinner that underscored the tech industry's evolving relationship with his administration. The gathering in the newly renovated Rose Garden brought together 33 attendees, including CEOs from major technology companies, venture capitalists, and administration officials. With 13 billionaires in attendance and many others worth millions of dollars, the event was easily one of the wealthiest gatherings in the history of the White House.

Picture this: You ask an AI to show you images of judges, and it depicts only 3 percent as women - even though 34 percent of federal judges are women. Or imagine an AI that's more likely to recommend harsh criminal sentences for people who use expressions rooted in Black vernacular cultures. Now imagine that same AI instructed to ignore climate impacts or treating Russian propaganda as credible information.

Midterm watch... The Wall Street Journal reported that Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI's Greg Brockman are among those who've helped launch a new super PAC network, called Leading the Future. The focus, of course, is AI. Ultimately, this isn't a surprise-on one hand, the $100 million already mobilized to shape AI policy and regulation feels like a lot, but that number absolutely dwarfs the billions a16z manages and that OpenAI has raised.

"As the organization grows, we are unionizing across newsrooms and teams to ensure our mission and vision align with employees' realities," the Signal Ohio News Workers Guild wrote in a statement signed by 15 union-eligible staffers. The journalists said their priorities for unionization include "transparent, equitable and sustainable pay," including cost-of-living raises; hiring practices that reflect Signal's "founding ethos of being accountable to our communities"; professional development; and a say in newsroom policies, including the use of artificial intelligence.

Anthropic has updated the usage policy for its Claude AI chatbot to include a ban on developing biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear weapons, amidst safety concerns.

"You can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or anything else that you've read or studied, you're supposed to pay for."

Anthropic now permits job applicants to utilize AI for enhancing their submissions, aiming to balance AI proficiency with authentic human skill evaluation. Candidates can collaborate with AI to refine résumés, cover letters, and interview preparations.

AI should support artists, not replace them. We're making a formal commitment that any use of AI on SoundCloud will be based on consent, transparency, and artist control.