More than 45 organizations, companies, and universities joined a letter urging key congressional committee leadership to prioritize establishing the artificial intelligence safety science body at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 29, 2024 — Today, leading AI and technology advocacy and industry organizations Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) and the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) sent a letter urging Congress to authorize the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (AISI) within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The letter, which was signed by a broad range of more than 45 industry, civil society, nonprofit, university, trade association, and research laboratory groups, calls on federal lawmakers to establish the AISI on a statutory basis to accelerate long-term innovation and understanding of AI. Formally authorizing the Institute at NIST, the groups write, “provides a venue to convene the leading experts across industry and government to contribute to the development of voluntary standards that ultimately assist in de-risking adoption of AI technologies.”
The letter was issued in advance of the Senate Commerce Committee’s planned consideration of several artificial intelligence bills later this week, including legislation to authorize the AISI.
“The U.S. has a major opportunity to set the tone for the rest of the world when it comes to AI innovation, and we can carve out that global leadership role by using the experience and brainpower of our private and public sector experts,” said ARI President Brad Carson. “Authorizing the AI Safety Institute in statute is a smart way to strengthen the already existing federal framework.”
“Building trust in AI is a shared responsibility among industry, civil society, and government,” said ITI President and CEO Jason Oxman. “The AI Safety Institute and the AISI Consortium are critical to advancing collaborative research and development and building trust in continued AI innovation and adoption, both here and globally. We urge Congress to enact bipartisan legislation to codify the work of NIST.”
The letter was addressed to Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), as well as Representatives Frank Lucas (R-OK) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, respectively. The full letter can be found here.
In addition to ARI and ITI, the letter was signed by A.Capital Ventures, AI Policy Institute,
Alliance for Trust in AI, Amazon, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), BABL AI, BSA | The Software Alliance, Capital Technology University, Carnegie Mellon University, Center for Human-Compatible AI – UC Berkeley, Center for AI Policy, Center for AI Safety Action Fund, CivAI, Clarifai, Cohere, Common Crawl Foundation, Drexel University, Duquesne University – Carl G Grefenstette Center for Ethics, EleutherAI, Encode Justice, FAIR Institute, FARI AI, Federation of American Scientists (FAS), Free Software Foundation, Future of Life Institute, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, IBM, Inclusive Abundance Initiative, Institute for Progress, ITIF Center for Data Innovation, Leela AI, Lucid Privacy, Meta, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions, National Retail Federation, Nielsen, OpenAI, Palantir, Palo Alto Networks, Public Knowledge, Salesforce, SandboxAQ, SV Angel, Transformative Futures Institute, TrueLaw, Trustible.
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About Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI)
Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to policy advocacy in the public interest, focused on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). Learn more at www.ari.us.