Taking Stock of Federal AI Governance
While Congress continued to study the risks and possibilities of AI, the Biden-Harris Administration took bold action: driving agency actions to address risks to civil rights, equity, competition, economic opportunity, and national security; establishing new federal guidance to guide agency development, use, and procurement of AI, and a new AI Safety Institute; and boosting the capacity of government to use and regulate AI by bringing in new tech and tech-related talent and driving public and private investments in the growing public interest tech ecosystem.
Drawing on my eighteen months of service in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Biden-Harris Administration, I will describe key Biden-Harris AI initiatives and, drawing on my prior research, examine how these initiatives pave the way for the government to purposefully use technology to embed values or set policy — what I call “governance-by-design” — in a manner that supports fundamental democratic governance norms of intentional, deliberative, participatory, and expert public decision making, and centers the public's rights and safety over private interests. Lastly, I will explain why these new directions in AI governance make growing the cultural and institutional support for public service in computing, data science and related professions an important national priority.
This lecture will also be live streamed online via Zoom. You are welcome to join us either in South Hall or on Zoom.
Speaker
Deirdre K. Mulligan
Deirdre K. Mulligan is a professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley, a faculty director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, a co-organizer of the Algorithmic Fairness & Opacity Working Group, an affiliated faculty on the Hewlett funded Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity and a faculty advisor for its AI Policy Hub, and a faculty advisor to the CITRIS Policy Lab. Mulligan’s research explores legal and technical means of protecting values such as privacy, freedom of expression, and fairness in socio-technical systems.
Mulligan served as principal deputy U.S. chief technology officer at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office (NAIIO) in the Biden-Harris Administration. At OSTP, Mulligan led the technology team that works to advance technology and data to benefit all Americans. Under her leadership the tech team leveraged technology and data to equitably deliver services, brought technology and data expertise to federal policy formation and implementation, and ensured that America led the world in values-driven technological research and innovation.
Contact
If you have questions about this event, please contact Kimmy Fox.
