M. Anthony Mills in The New Atlantis:
Last month, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on artificial intelligence. Among the longest in recent decades and encompassing directives to dozens of federal agencies and certain companies, the order is a decidedly mixed bag. It shrinks back from the most aggressive proposals for federal intervention but leaves plenty for proponents of limited government to fret about. For instance, the order invokes the Defense Production Act — a law designed to assist private industry in providing necessary resources during a national security crisis — to regulate an emerging technology. This surely strains the law’s intent, not to mention allowing the executive branch to circumvent Congress.
Setting aside the merits or demerits of the order itself, however, it is worth stepping back to consider what this move by the White House tells us about the politics of AI — and in particular what it leaves out.
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