As debate over the regulation of artificial intelligence rages in Congress, the U.S. government will reach a voluntary agreement with leading venture capital firms to encourage early-stage startups to develop artificial intelligence responsibly.
“We need to have a framework for accountability, explainability and transparency,” said Hemant Taneja, managing director at venture capital firm General Catalyst and founder of the think tank leading the initiative. wealthTuesday’s CEO Initiative.
plan, The laboratory, called the Responsible Innovation Laboratory (RIL), is a project jointly launched by the U.S. Department of Commerce and several technology investors led by General Catalyst. Investors who sign on will commit to funding early-stage artificial intelligence companies — which have become extremely popular in Silicon Valley of late — under a series of voluntary safeguards designed to ensure the responsible use of new technologies. Signatories will agree to disclose security assessments, undergo regular audits of their AI platforms, and commit to actually implementing any improvements.
There have been some other efforts by the private sector to impose some form of self-regulation on AI; however, these have been limited to existing large tech companies, not new startups.
Gaurab Bansal, executive director of RIL, said: “Our alliance lays out a framework that promotes responsible innovation, the development of early-stage companies leveraging artificial intelligence and continued collaboration between the public and private sectors.” wealth before the meeting.
“We are pleased to see venture capitalists, startups and business leaders unite around this and similar efforts,” a Commerce Department spokesperson said. wealth. The department previously confirmed that it “provided feedback to RIL on its ‘priorities'”.
One person familiar with the matter said the focus on new startups is intentional to ensure that artificial intelligence regulations do not favor technology giants. wealth. In the CEO initiative, Taneja said artificial intelligence will be an innovation that will create competition among existing businesses and new startups in a way that previous technological advances have not. Startups often lack the resources to think about the long-term impacts of the technologies they develop, so it can be difficult to implement responsible AI practices without clear guidelines. “These big companies have responsible AI teams, they have trust and safety teams. People have PhDs in this, and early-stage companies don’t have PhDs,” said Lauren Wagner, senior advisor at the Responsible Innovation Lab. .
Wagner and Bansal also offered a more pragmatic view of AI regulation: Investors and potential buyers will not be willing to hand over money to startups that cannot guarantee responsible use of AI. “Startups are looking to acquire customers, so they need people to trust the systems they are creating,” Wagner said.
RIL was founded by General Catalyst’s Taneja and two former executives of General Catalyst-invested payments company Stripe. Other signatories to the new initiative so far include Mayfield, Bain Capital Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners and Lux Capital, according to a release from RIL, which asked not to be named.
Taneja has a reputation as an outspoken voice in the Silicon Valley community.When the Bay Area was reeling from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, he spearheaded an open letter supporting the bank (so long as it was acquired by another entity), which ended up getting signatures from 120 companies; and worked with other venture capital firms set of suggestions Helping startups mitigate the risk of future bank runs.Last month, he joined the public debate on artificial intelligence via Harvard Business Review article Writing with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, urging the United States to surpass China in technological advancement.
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