Press Release
New Shadow Report Addresses Gaps in the Senate Roadmap for AI and Calls for a Policy Agenda that Harnesses AI in the Public Interest
05. 20. 2024
The counter report calls for comprehensive AI regulation and investment to protect consumers, workers, and foster innovation.
Today, a dozen organizations released “Put the Public Back in the Driver’s Seat: Shadow Report to the US Senate AI Policy Roadmap,” responding to the Senate’s proposed AI roadmap released last week.
Taylor Jo Isenberg, Executive Director at Economic Security Project, commented:
“The Shadow Report fills in the glaring omissions in the Senate’s roadmap for AI Policy, which appears to take a disappointing hands-off approach to regulation.
The Senate report deploys an outdated framework that historically has entrenched Big Tech monopolies and would magnify privacy and discrimination harms for consumers and workers alike, stifle innovation among entrepreneurs and small businesses, and ultimately leave our economy less competitive and resilient.
To deploy AI in the public interest, and not just in service of a handful of dominant companies, policymakers should leverage the decades of evidence to advance a comprehensive regulatory approach to the digital economy. There is a broad set of policies supported by academia and civil society that could harness AI for the public good. Key policies, most of which are not referenced in the Senate roadmap, include non-discrimination rules that provide equal access and treatment for businesses that depend on a provider’s services, resourcing enforcement agencies to enforce the law, protecting privacy and ensuring data portability and interoperability, building public capacity on AI to ensure innovations that contribute to the public good, and investing in expertise in government to engage meaningfully with shifts in the technology. These policies should be complemented by interventions to mitigate potential and unforeseen harm to communities.
Policymakers have an opportunity to embrace a comprehensive regulatory approach that can unleash a new generation of competition and innovation, leveling the playing field for workers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs, but the Senate’s roadmap isn’t it.”