Policy

Most Americans want AI regulation — and they want it yesterday

In a poll, people said they wanted to see artificial intelligence technologies develop in the U.S. — alongside rules governing their use.

An exterior photo of the Capitol building on a sunny day

U.S. lawmakers have only just begun the long process of regulating the use of AI.

Photo: Louis Velazquez/Unsplash

Nearly two-thirds of Americans want the U.S to regulate the development and use of artificial intelligence in the next year or sooner — with half saying that regulation should have begun yesterday, according to a Morning Consult poll. Another 13% say that regulation should start in the next year.

"You can thread this together," Austin Carson, founder of new nonprofit group SeedAI and former government relations lead for Nvidia, said in an email. "Half or more Americans want to address all of these things, split pretty evenly along ideological lines."

The poll, which SeedAI commissioned, backs up earlier findings that while U.S. adults support investment in the development of AI, they want clear rules around that development. Almost 70% of adults support more work in developing AI, but majorities from both parties — 67% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans — said that they'd want to see regulation sooner if they knew companies were already testing for bias and other issues.

Carson's group, which officially launches Friday, aims to make sure underrepresented groups and regions can learn about AI, train for jobs in the sector and benefit from the technology. He said he wanted to see the U.S. providing "resources for a diverse range of communities" that would be available for research, development, training and testing on trustworthiness. The formal launch of Carson's group will include Lynne Parker, who is director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office, as well as members of Congress as speakers.

The poll found that approximately eight in 10 respondents think the federal government should probably or definitely try to make sure AI is trustworthy and safe, with an even greater share supporting a role for state governments or efforts by the companies themselves. On the topic of limiting bias, 65% said the federal government should probably or definitely work on the issue, with 69% saying private companies should.

The itch for regulation is unlikely to get a scratch from the feds anytime soon. Congress has repeatedly failed to pass significant laws governing much more mature aspects of technology, such as the ongoing push for a nationwide privacy law. Still, lawmakers have proposed AI-regulating measures in the past, and a Senate-passed bill that aims to boost the U.S. against China would set up a scholarship to "recruit and train artificial intelligence professionals to lead and support the application of" AI to government activities.

Industry also wants Congress to act. In June, the BSA, a trade group for many companies that produce AI systems, began advocating for Congress to enact a law requiring firms to assess and minimize bias for "high-risk" uses of AI. BSA said at the time it believed the process could take years and added its hope that the proposal would replace farther-reaching legislation.

Regulators elsewhere, however, are also taking notice. Earlier this year, Europe suggested banning systems that pose a serious risk to health and human rights, as well as strict rules for an array of "high-risk" AI.

The poll suggested some specific areas where the public might like to see regulators take action. More than 70% of the people who responded said they were at least somewhat worried about AI being vulnerable to hacking or used to spread misinformation. The majority of respondents also expressed some worry about bias, the decline of human autonomy in daily tasks, job losses, over-reliance on AI in policing or military applications, and AI systems "becoming uncontrollable."

The results suggested the public sees benefits to AI as well. Strong majorities favored investments in teaching kids about using AI and training workers for jobs in the field, particularly the aim of making the U.S. "a global leader" in both areas. Nearly 80% said U.S. investment in AI research and development for military and defense applications was at least somewhat important, alongside 75% who said so for health care.

Interestingly, while Baby Boomers had higher levels of concern about AI, the youngest adults in the survey, from Gen Z (born after 1997), were less likely to say the U.S. should have begun its regulation already, or to be interested in learning about current or future uses of AI.

"As soon as you drop to digital natives, the game changes," Carson said. He suggested that younger adults' attitudes could evolve, but are probably "a more accurate barometer for the future" than millennials and older generations.

The poll interviewed 2,200 adults online, and full survey results had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Fintech

Judge Zia Faruqui is trying to teach you crypto, one ‘SNL’ reference at a time

His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. Strangelove." That’s because he wants you — yes, you — to read them.

The ways Zia Faruqui (right) has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster.

Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Cryptocurrency and related software analytics tools are ‘The wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic.’”

That’s not a quote from "The Big Lebowski" — at least, not directly. It’s a quote from a Washington, D.C., district court memorandum opinion on the role cryptocurrency analytics tools can play in government investigations. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.

Keep ReadingShow less
Veronica Irwin

Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.

The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance. Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more.

Keep ReadingShow less
FTA
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) represents industry leaders shaping the future of finance. We champion the power of technology-centered financial services and advocate for the modernization of financial regulation to support inclusion and responsible innovation.
Enterprise

AWS CEO: The cloud isn’t just about technology

As AWS preps for its annual re:Invent conference, Adam Selipsky talks product strategy, support for hybrid environments, and the value of the cloud in uncertain economic times.

Photo: Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

AWS is gearing up for re:Invent, its annual cloud computing conference where announcements this year are expected to focus on its end-to-end data strategy and delivering new industry-specific services.

It will be the second re:Invent with CEO Adam Selipsky as leader of the industry’s largest cloud provider after his return last year to AWS from data visualization company Tableau Software.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donna Goodison

Donna Goodison (@dgoodison) is Protocol's senior reporter focusing on enterprise infrastructure technology, from the 'Big 3' cloud computing providers to data centers. She previously covered the public cloud at CRN after 15 years as a business reporter for the Boston Herald. Based in Massachusetts, she also has worked as a Boston Globe freelancer, business reporter at the Boston Business Journal and real estate reporter at Banker & Tradesman after toiling at weekly newspapers.

Image: Protocol

We launched Protocol in February 2020 to cover the evolving power center of tech. It is with deep sadness that just under three years later, we are winding down the publication.

As of today, we will not publish any more stories. All of our newsletters, apart from our flagship, Source Code, will no longer be sent. Source Code will be published and sent for the next few weeks, but it will also close down in December.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bennett Richardson

Bennett Richardson ( @bennettrich) is the president of Protocol. Prior to joining Protocol in 2019, Bennett was executive director of global strategic partnerships at POLITICO, where he led strategic growth efforts including POLITICO's European expansion in Brussels and POLITICO's creative agency POLITICO Focus during his six years with the company. Prior to POLITICO, Bennett was co-founder and CMO of Hinge, the mobile dating company recently acquired by Match Group. Bennett began his career in digital and social brand marketing working with major brands across tech, energy, and health care at leading marketing and communications agencies including Edelman and GMMB. Bennett is originally from Portland, Maine, and received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University.

Enterprise

Why large enterprises struggle to find suitable platforms for MLops

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, and as larger enterprises go from deploying hundreds of models to thousands and even millions of models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

Photo: artpartner-images via Getty Images

On any given day, Lily AI runs hundreds of machine learning models using computer vision and natural language processing that are customized for its retail and ecommerce clients to make website product recommendations, forecast demand, and plan merchandising. But this spring when the company was in the market for a machine learning operations platform to manage its expanding model roster, it wasn’t easy to find a suitable off-the-shelf system that could handle such a large number of models in deployment while also meeting other criteria.

Some MLops platforms are not well-suited for maintaining even more than 10 machine learning models when it comes to keeping track of data, navigating their user interfaces, or reporting capabilities, Matthew Nokleby, machine learning manager for Lily AI’s product intelligence team, told Protocol earlier this year. “The duct tape starts to show,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kate Kaye

Kate Kaye is an award-winning multimedia reporter digging deep and telling print, digital and audio stories. She covers AI and data for Protocol. Her reporting on AI and tech ethics issues has been published in OneZero, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, CityLab, Ad Age and Digiday and heard on NPR. Kate is the creator of RedTailMedia.org and is the author of "Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about how the 2008 presidential campaigns used digital media and data.

Latest Stories
Bulletins