WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill late on Wednesday that would make it easier for the Biden administration to impose export controls on AI models in a bid to safeguard valuable U.S. technology from bad actors foreigners.
The bill, sponsored by House Republicans Michael McCaul, John Molenaar, Max Wise and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthiit would also give the Commerce Department express authority to prohibit Americans from working with foreigners to develop AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security.
The legislation aims to protect any future AI export regulations from legal challenges. Concerns are growing that US adversaries could use the models, which mine large amounts of text and images to summarize information and generate content, to carry out aggressive cyber attacks or even to create powerful biological weapons.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that the United States is prepared to open a new front in its effort to protect US AI from China and Russia, with preliminary plans to impose export controls on the most advanced proprietary AI models.
But under existing US law, it is much more difficult for the Department of Commerce, which oversees US export policy, to regulate the export of open source AI models, which can be downloaded for free.
If passed, the measure would remove obstacles to regulating the export of open source AI contained in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and would also give the Department of Commerce express authority to regulate AI systems.
China has relied heavily on many open source models developed in the West, such as Meta Platforms’ “Llama” series.
In March, the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, a high-level research laboratory, was quoted by Chinese state media as stating that most of China’s domestically developed AI models were in fact built using Meta’s Llama models and that this represented a fundamental challenge for China. AI development.
In November 2023, 01.AI, one of the most prominent AI unicorns in China founded by former Google executive Lee Kai-fu, faced a huge backlash after some AI engineers discovered that its AI model Yi -34B was built at Llama da Meta. system.
This also comes after Microsoft (MSFT.O) announced it was investing $1.5 billion in UAE-based artificial intelligence company G42, giving G42 permission to use Microsoft’s cloud services to run its AI applications.
The agreement, which involved a security agreement signed with the US and UAE governments, was revealed despite growing concerns in the United States about deepening ties between China and Gulf states, including the UAE.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Diane Craft)
