EPIC - AI Commission Report Recommends Key Safeguards, But No Binding Limits on AI Use

AI Commission Report Recommends Key Safeguards, But No Binding Limits on AI Use

The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence has issued its final report on the use of AI in national security and defense settings. The report urges Congress and the President to implement key safeguards on federal AI deployment, including mandating AI impact and risk assessments, updating standards for Privacy Act notices and privacy impact assessments, establishing an independent auditor for AI systems, empowering the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to conduct AI oversight, and establishing a task force to recommend legal restrictions on the use of AI. However, the report fails to propose any substantive limits on AI use for Congressional enactment, as EPIC urged the Commission to do last year. "Unless express, binding limits on the use of AI are established now, the technology will quickly outpace our collective ability to regulate it," EPIC wrote. "The Commission cannot simply kick the can down the road, particularly when governments, civil society, and private sector actors have already laid extensive groundwork for the regulation of AI." Controversially, the AI Commission's final report also fails to endorse a ban on the use of autonomous weapons. The report was approved at the Commission's final meeting, which was open to the public as a result of EPIC's lawsuit. EPIC successfully sued the AI Commission in order to enforce its transparency obligations, forcing the Commission to hold open meetings and disclose thousands of pages of records. The case is EPIC v. AI Commission, No. 19-2906 (D.D.C.).