Bipartisan FRONTIER Act Adds Robust AI Emergency Shutdown Authority
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For those who've been following the Trahan-Obernolte saga, this is a pretty crazy development and shows how far the Overton window has shifted just in the past few months. The previous discussion draft had broad preemption and much weaker substantive provisions. This new FRONTIER Act has very narrow preemption and adds a robust and well-designed emergency shutdown authority to replace the ad hoc export control-based licensing regime that's currently in place. Not too long ago, a bipartisan bill this good and serious would have been a pipe dream. But things change quickly. This is by far the best AI safety bill ever introduced, in any jurisdiction. There are still some flaws that I would like to see fixed, and some improvements to be made, but overall I'm very impressed with how well Reps. Trahan and Obernolte did on this. The next step is actually *passing* this kind of legislation, which unfortunately still seems like a pretty heavy lift. But this is a very promising first step.
Text of new Trahan/Obernolte bill is now out. From the summary: - Creates an Under Secretary of Commerce for AI Security - Federalizes a version of SB 53/RAISE's transparency rules - Establishes a licensing regime for Independent Verification Organizations, who would have to vet frontier developers and sound the alarm if a model poses imminent catastrophic risk - Gives Secretary of Commerce power to "suspend or restrict a frontier developer's development, deployment, or internal use of a frontier model upon a written finding that it presents an imminent catastrophic risk." - Preempts state laws on "frontier AI catastrophic-risk transparency, third-party auditing and independent verification, or incident reporting", and expressly does NOT preempt "generally applicable laws, useand deployment-based regulation of deployers and users, laws protecting minors, and State procurement and use rules". Summary here: https://trahan.house.gov/uploadedfiles/26-07-21_-_frontier_act_section-by-section.pdf Full text here: https://trahan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=3823
like a lot of people on here, i had some concerns regarding the initial federal framework discussion draft that @RepLoriTrahan and @JayObernolte released a couple weeks ago. i am happy to say that, after substantial engagement and feedback, they’ve crafted the strongest ai safety proposal to date in the FRONTIER Act. there’s still some improvements i’d like to see in the text, and i look forward to continued conversation with the sponsors. but! the narrower preemption and strong auditing provisions should inspire confidence that congress is evolving their approach quickly and worth engaging.
Obernolte-Trahan artificial intelligence bill introduced in House http://dlvr.it/TTgdvy
The FRONTIER Act is a meaningful bipartisan effort to strengthen oversight of the most advanced Al systems, and it's the strongest federal proposal to date. It builds on state regulations in many ways and incorporates a lot of the feedback that various stakeholders gave on the earlier discussion draft. There are some remaining areas for improvement, including making sure that state laws are not preempted until their federal replacements are ready and clarifying some of the auditing provisions. But this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction and we look forward to working with Representatives Trahan and Obernolte, their staff, and other members of Congress to strengthen this proposal and advance effective oversight of frontier Al.
Obernolte-Trahan artificial intelligence bill introduced in House http://dlvr.it/TTgdvy
As AI systems grow more capable, Americans deserve confidence that the most powerful models are being developed responsibly. I’m introducing the FRONTIER Act with @JayObernolte to ensure commonsense transparency and independent oversight for the largest AI developers while giving them a single, clear national standard to build on. https://punchbowl.news/article/tech/obernolte-trahan-frontier-ai/