CAIP Applauds Passage of NDAA

Today, Congress sent the National Defense Reauthorization Act FY2024 to President’s Biden’s desk for signing. After weeks of negotiations, the bipartisan bill succeeded 310-118 in the House and 87-13 in the Senate. Among other things, the Act includes a number of provisions to advance responsible AI policy.

The following statement can be attributed to Jason Green-Lowe, Executive Director of the Center for AI Policy:

"The Center for AI Policy applauds Congress on the bipartisan passage of the FY2024 NDAA, which includes several provisions that will genuinely advance the safety and reliability of our military’s AI. We are particularly excited to see provisions for a bug bounty program and for the establishment of a prize competition for watermarking on generative AI. These creative approaches will leverage the private sector’s expertise to help secure a technology that is vital to the public interest.

While we appreciate the intent of the NDAA’s directive for the Secretary of Defense to conduct a year-long study on agentic and interpretable AI, such a study will have little positive effect unless it is followed up with robust action. We strongly urge Congress to add provisions to the FY2025 NDAA that will direct the Defense Department to prioritize the acquisition and deployment of more interpretable AI systems and to take concrete steps to mitigate the severe risks that uninterpretable AI poses to privacy, security, and accuracy.

AI technology is advancing at an increasingly rapid rate. We are living in a world where AI is already being used to pilot drones, identify targets, design new weapons, and assist with writing the software that controls those weapons. It is imperative that our lawmakers keep their eyes open for opportunities to put binding safeguards in place to protect us all from the threats it can pose to our national security, to our essential infrastructure, and, ultimately, to our very survival."

Please direct any questions to Kate Forscey at kate@aipolicy.us.