The EU’s approach to regulating AI
The EU's approach to regulating AI Host Marco Werman speaks with Sarah Myers West, the managing director of the AI Now Institute, a policy research institute in New York, to find out about the EU’s approach and what it bodes for other countries considering similar regulations.
The World
May 15, 2023
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Myers West says she has been disappointed to see how much emphasis that effort appears to be placing on interventions like AI audits, which place the onus on what will inevitably be under-resourced third parties to police the technologies of multibillion-dollar tech giants. “That’s a fairly weak foundation from which to build from,” Myers West says.
Fast Company
May 12, 2023
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The AI Now Institute, a consortium of AI researchers and policy experts, recently published a report that concluded the AI industry is “foundationally reliant on resources that are owned and controlled by only a handful of big tech firms.” Its power is extremely concentrated in Silicon Valley, among giants such as Google and Meta, and that is where the economic benefits are all but certain to accrue.
LA Times
May 11, 2023
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The lobbying by Big Tech companies, including Alphabet and Microsoft, is something that lawmakers worldwide will need to be wary of, says Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute, another think tank. “I think we're seeing an emerging playbook for how they're trying to tilt the policy environment in their favor,” she says.
Wired
May 8, 2023
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Last week, the White House summoned top tech leaders to discuss safeguards. CNA’s Steve Lai and Julie Yoo spoke to former AI adviser to the US Federal Trade Commission and current managing director of the AI Now Institute, Sarah Myers West, on what regulators need to do to shape the direction of generative AI and why it is critical for users to better understand this technology.
Channel News Asia
May 8, 2023
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“The national context in which the regulation is being deployed matters an awful lot,” said Myers West. “So to the extent that the [EU’s] AI Act is going to become a template for other countries to adopt, it’s also important to look at the constitutional protection, the rights, the democratic context of the nation employing the the laws, because particularly with this risk-based approach, it won’t necessarily port neatly into other kinds of jurisdictions.”
Foreign Policy
May 5, 2023
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“It’s not so much about what AI is going to do, but what companies are going to use AI to justify,” says Myers West.
Time
May 4, 2023
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We just can’t afford to confuse the right noises for enforceable regulation right now,” West says.
Wired
May 4, 2023
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“It’s certainly welcome to see companies trying to tinker with the development of their systems to try and reduce these kinds of errors — I think what’s key is to interpret this as corporate research, in light of the many barriers that exist to deeper forms of accountability,” Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute, told CNBC.
CNBC
May 1, 2023
Experts say AI poses ‘extinction’ level of risk, as Congress seeks legislative response
Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West, two former FTC officials, said in a report published last month that the FTC has existing authority relating to antitrust and consumer harm to regulate the fast-growing artificial intelligence tech sector even without new legislation.
Roll Call
May 1, 2023
The rise of AI will only make Big Tech more powerful, researchers warn
"If we want to make any meaningful reform in the tech industry, we need to start by confronting the concentration of power," Sarah Myers West, managing director of AI Now, told Insider.
Business Insider
Apr 25, 2023
Generative AI risks concentrating Big Tech’s power. Here’s how to stop it.
If regulators don’t act now, the generative AI boom will concentrate Big Tech’s power even further. That’s the central argument of a new report from research institute AI Now.
MIT Technology Review
Apr 18, 2023
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Unless regulators act, Big Tech’s dominance over the digital economy will be cemented
Financial Times
Apr 17, 2023
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But others say that focusing on how to control yet-to-arrive AI systems distracts from the real and present dangers of the technology. It “puts intervention way off on the horizon”, says Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute, a policy-research organization in New York City. Instead, she says, we need “to tackle near-term harms”, such as AI systems reinforcing biases in their training data, or potentially leaking private information.
Nature
Apr 13, 2023
Finally, a realistic roadmap for getting AI companies in check
In a new report, the AI Now Institute — a research center studying the social implications of artificial intelligence — offers a roadmap that specifies exactly which steps policymakers can take. It’s refreshingly pragmatic and actionable, thanks to the government experience of authors Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West.
Vox
Apr 12, 2023
The Technology 202: Former FTC advisors urge swift action to counteract ‘AI hype’
Authored by two former advisers to FTC Chair Lina Khan, Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West, the paper offers a glimpse into how key tech regulators may respond to Silicon Valley’s soaring interest in AI
The Washington Post
Apr 11, 2023
AI Isn’t Omnipotent. It’s Janky. – an interview with Amba Kak
Everybody’s talking about futuristic risks, the singularity, existential risk. They’re distracting from the fact that the thing that really scares these companies is regulation. Regulation today.
The Atlantic
Apr 3, 2023
500 Top Technologists and Elon Musk Demand Immediate Pause of Advanced AI Systems
"But here’s what’s key to understand about Chat GPT and other similar large language models: they’re not in any way actually reflecting the depth of understanding of human language—they’re mimicking its form.”
Gizmodo
Mar 29, 2023
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