On October 30, 2023, President Biden issued an executive order (“EO”) on the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and deployment of artificial intelligence (“AI”) that has the potential to set far-reaching standards governing the use and development of AI across industries. Although the EO does not directly regulate private industry, apart from certain large-scale models or computing clusters deemed to potentially impact national security (discussed below), it requires federal agencies including the Departments of Commerce (principally through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”)), Energy, and Homeland Security, among others, to issue standards and guidance and to use their existing authorities, including regulatory authorities, to police the use of AI in ways that will impact business for years to come. In addition, it devotes federal resources toward AI-related education, training and research, including the further development of privacy enhancing technologies (“PETs”) such as differential privacy and synthetic data generation.
Click here to read Ropes & Gray’s Client Alert detailing the new EO.