The Federal Commerce Fee is without doubt one of the most important venues for presidency regulation of massive tech and its wares. Alpha Picture/Flickr, CC BY-NC
It’s not shocking that expertise regulation is a vital difficulty within the 2024 U.S. presidential marketing campaign.
The previous decade has seen superior applied sciences, from social media algorithms to giant language mannequin synthetic intelligence programs, profoundly have an effect on society. These adjustments, which spanned the Trump and Biden-Harris administrations, spurred requires the federal authorities to control the applied sciences and the highly effective firms that wield them.
As a researcher of knowledge programs and AI, I examined each candidates’ information on expertise regulation. Listed here are the vital variations.
Algorithmic harms
With synthetic intelligence now widespread, governments worldwide are grappling with regulate varied features of the expertise. The candidates provide totally different visions for U.S. AI coverage. One space the place there’s a stark distinction is in recognizing and addressing algorithmic harms from the widespread use of AI expertise.
AI impacts your life in ways in which would possibly escape your discover. Biases in algorithms used for lending and hiring selections may find yourself reinforcing a vicious cycle of discrimination. For instance, a pupil who can’t get a mortgage for school would then be much less prone to get the training wanted to drag herself out of poverty.
On the AI Security Summit within the U.Ok. in November 2023, Harris spoke of the promise of AI but additionally the perils from algorithmic bias, deepfakes and wrongful arrests. Biden signed an government order on AI on Oct. 30, 2023, that acknowledged AI programs can pose unacceptable dangers of hurt to civil and human rights and particular person well-being. In parallel, federal businesses such because the Federal Commerce Fee have carried out enforcement actions to protect towards algorithmic harms.
President Joe Biden indicators an government order addressing the dangers of synthetic intelligence on Oct. 30, 2023, with Vice President Kamala Harris at his aspect.
AP Picture/Evan Vucci
Against this, the Trump administration didn’t take a public stance on mitigation of algorithmic harms. Trump has mentioned he desires to repeal President Biden’s AI government order. In latest interviews, nevertheless, Trump famous the risks from applied sciences comparable to deepfakes and challenges posed to safety from AI programs, suggesting a willingness to interact with the rising dangers from AI.
Technological requirements
The Trump administration signed the American AI Initiative government order on Feb. 11, 2019. The order pledged to double AI analysis funding and established the primary set of nationwide AI analysis institutes. The order additionally included a plan for AI technical requirements and established steering for the federal authorities’s use of AI. Trump additionally signed an government order on Dec. 3, 2020, selling using reliable AI within the federal authorities.
The Biden-Harris administration has tried to go additional. Harris convened the heads of Google, Microsoft and different tech firms on the White Home on Could 4, 2023, to undertake a set of voluntary commitments to safeguard particular person rights. The Biden administration’s government order incorporates an vital initiative to probe the vulnerablity of very large-scale, general-purpose AI fashions educated on huge quantities of knowledge. The objective is to find out the dangers hackers pose to those fashions, together with those that energy OpenAI’s standard ChatGPT and DALL-E.
Donald Trump departs from Washington D.C., on Feb. 11, 2019, shortly after signing an government order on synthetic intelligence that included setting technical requirements.
Nicholas Kamm/AFP through Getty Photos
Antitrust
Antitrust regulation enforcement – proscribing or conditioning mergers and acquisitions – is one other method the federal authorities regulates the expertise trade.
The Trump administration’s antitrust file contains its try to dam AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner. The merger was finally allowed by a federal decide after the FTC beneath the Trump administration filed a go well with to dam the deal. The Trump administration additionally filed an antitrust case towards Google targeted on its dominance in web search.
Biden signed an government order on July 9, 2021, to implement antitrust legal guidelines arising from the anticompetitive results of dominant web platforms. The order additionally focused the acquisition of nascent rivals, the aggregation of knowledge, unfair competitors in consideration markets and the surveillance of customers. The Biden-Harris administration has filed antitrust circumstances towards Apple and Google.
The Biden-Harris administration’s merger tips in 2023 outlined guidelines to find out when mergers could be thought of anticompetitive. Whereas each administrations filed antitrust circumstances, the Biden administration’s antitrust push seems stronger by way of its impression in probably reorganizing and even orchestrating a breakup of dominant firms comparable to Google.
Cryptocurrency
The candidates have totally different approaches to cryptocurrency regulation. Late in his administration, Trump tweeted in assist of cryptocurrency regulation. Additionally late in Trump’s administration, the federal Monetary Crimes Enforcement Community proposed laws that will have required monetary companies to gather the identification of any cryptocurrency pockets to which a consumer despatched funds. The laws weren’t enacted.
Trump has since shifted his place on cryptocurrencies. He has criticized current U.S. legal guidelines and known as for the US to be a Bitcoin superpower. The Trump marketing campaign is the primary presidential marketing campaign to just accept funds in cryptocurrencies.
The Biden-Harris administration, in contrast, has laid out regulatory restrictions on cryptocurrencies with the Securities and Alternate Fee, which caused a sequence of enforcement actions. The White Home vetoed the Monetary Innovation and Expertise for the twenty first Century Act that aimed to make clear accounting for cryptocurrencies, a invoice favored by the cryptocurrency trade.
Knowledge privateness
Biden’s AI government order calls on Congress to undertake privateness laws, but it surely doesn’t present a legislative framework to take action. The Trump White Home’s American AI Initiative government order mentions privateness solely in broad phrases, calling for AI applied sciences to uphold “civil liberties, privateness, and American values.” The order didn’t point out how current privateness protections could be enforced.
Throughout the U.S., a number of states have tried to move laws addressing features of knowledge privateness. At current, there’s a patchwork of statewide initiatives and an absence of complete information privateness laws on the federal degree.
The paucity of federal information privateness protections is a stark reminder that whereas the candidates are addressing a few of the challenges posed by developments in AI and expertise extra broadly, loads nonetheless stays to be accomplished to control expertise within the public curiosity.
General, the Biden administration’s efforts at antitrust and expertise regulation appear broadly aligned with the objective of reining in expertise firms and defending customers. It’s additionally reimagining monopoly protections for the twenty first century. This appears to be the chief distinction between the 2 administrations.
Anjana Susarla receives funding from the Nationwide Institute of Well being
