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AI Now Team Updates

The AI industry is pushing a nuclear power revival — partly to fuel itself

“If you were to integrate large language models, GPT-style models into search engines, it’s going to cost five times as much environmentally as standard search,” said Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute, a research group focused on the social impacts of AI. At current growth rates, some new AI servers could soon gobble up more than 85 terawatt hours of electricity each year, researchers have estimated — more than some small nations’ annual energy consumption.

AI could disrupt the election. Congress is running out of time to respond

Absent congressional action, the task will fall to other government bodies — such as consumer protection agencies and financial regulators — to try to regulate AI under existing laws, said Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute and a former AI advisor to the Federal Trade Commission.

Op-ed: The Problem With Public-Private Partnerships in AI

Companies first need to do a better job of demonstrating the technology’s societal benefits.

What to know about landmark AI regulations proposed in California

"It's great to see the focus on addressing and mitigating harms before they go into the market," Myers West told ABC News.

How Walmart, Delta, Chevron and Starbucks are using AI to monitor employee messages

“No company is essentially in a position to make any sweeping assurances about the privacy and security of LLMs and these kinds of systems,” Kak said. “There is no one who can tell you with a straight face that these challenges are solved.”

Former FTC AI Advisor Reflects on Tech’s Tricky & Faulty Incentive Structure

"We need to effectively shift the incentive structures to ensure the companies are accountable to the public."

FTC focused on competition and dominance in generative AI space

Amba Kak, Executive Director of the AI Now Institute, explained that without sufficient funding, smaller companies will not be able to strike deals with third parties for valuable high quality data used to train models, and will be unable to compete with well-funded firms that are able to maximize access to publishers and the media industry and push for exclusivity with respect to data access.

OpenAI quietly deletes ban on using ChatGPT for “military and warfare”

“Given the use of AI systems in the targeting of civilians in Gaza, it’s a notable moment to make the decision to remove the words ‘military and warfare’ from OpenAI’s permissible use policy,” said Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute and a former AI policy analyst at the Federal Trade Commission.

EU’s powerful AI Act is here. But is it too late?

AI Now Institute Executive Director Amba Kak spoke positively of the AI Act, telling PopSci it was a “crucial counterpoint in a year that has otherwise largely been a deluge of weak voluntary proposals.”

Generative AI is transforming businesses everywhere. Big Tech will still be crowned the winner.

In April, researchers at the AI Now Institute published a report that said AI development had been "foundationally reliant" on the resources held and controlled by the giants.

Make no mistake—AI is owned by Big Tech

If we’re not careful, Microsoft, Amazon, and other large companies will leverage their position to set the policy agenda for AI, as they have in many other sectors.

What the OpenAI drama means for AI progress — and safety

“The push to retain dominance is leading to toxic competition. It’s a race to the bottom,” says Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute, a policy-research organization based in New York City.

The AI Supply Chain: An Emerging Oligopoly?

The report was published ahead of a November 15 event hosted by the Open Markets Institute and the AI Now Institute Washington, DC.

The AI Debate Is Happening in a Cocoon

Existential risks—or x-risks, as they’re sometimes known in AI circles—evoke blockbuster science-fiction movies and play to many people’s deepest fears. But AI already poses economic and physical threats—ones that disproportionately harm society’s most vulnerable people.

The AI safety summit, and its critics

Amba Kak of the AI Now Institute, one of the few representatives of civil society at last week’s summit, said at the event’s conclusion that “we are at risk of further entrenching the dominance of a handful of private actors over our economy and our social institutions.”

Global leaders commit to pre-deployment AI safety testing

bal leaders commit to pre-deployment AI safety testing AI Now Institute executive director Amba Kak, one of three civil society representatives at the summit table, praised pre-deployment testing commitments, but warned, "We are at risk of further entrenching the dominance of a handful of private actors over our economy and our social institutions."

Will a new regulation on AI help tame the machine?

“We should just be able to say, ‘We don’t want that kind of AI to be used, period, it’s too harmful for the public,’” said West.