From landlords to bioweapons, here’s everything covered in Biden’s AI executive order

After months of chatter in Washington about how best to rein in AI, President Biden is taking some concrete steps in the form of a first-of-its-kind executive order.

The White House laid out a sweeping set of rules that span eight areas of focus, including equity and civil rights, privacy, and worker and consumer protections. The order is the administration’s first big attempt to shape the development of the latest wave of generative AI tech following a non-binding agreement tech leaders signed over the summer.

What it says: The directives in the order cover everything from housing discrimination to bioweapons, and aim to address AI at each stage of development. Here’s a rundown:

• Developers must share safety test results with the government, and various agencies will work on developing standards designed to mitigate threats from AI-created biological weapons and deceptive deepfakes.
• The order includes a regimen of new privacy research and rules that aims to better govern how developers use information they collect on users.
• A section of the order homes in on algorithmic discrimination; it calls for guidance to landlords, federal contractors, and welfare programs on reducing bias in any AI tools they use, as well as new guidelines for the Department of Justice to probe this type of discrimination and more rules around AI’s use in the criminal justice system.
• The general consumer protection section focuses mostly on developing standards for AI’s use in healthcare and education.
• The order calls for a report on AI’s impact on the workplace, and lists directives for working with allies to implement AI standards internationally.

Where it fits in: The executive order builds on a summit over the summer where Biden convened tech leaders to sign onto a non-binding agreement, which many academics and experts found lacking at the time. It also comes as Congress is in the earliest stages of looking at regulation, involving a series of forums with industry leaders, advocacy groups, and other concerned parties.

Meanwhile, the European Union is also in the process of readying its own broad set of laws governing AI.

Stakeholder reactions: Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, in a thread, praised the “heavy emphasis on testing and evaluating AI systems.”

Consumer rights group Public Citizen called the order “a first step” and approved of the focus on preventing algorithmic discrimination and the federal government using its leverage as “a major purchaser of technology” in a statement from the group’s president, Robert Weissman.

IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna said in a statement that the company supports the White House’s efforts to promote the development of responsible AI.

EqualAI President and CEO Miriam Vogel said in a statement that the executive order was “an important step in preventing bias in AI and developing its responsible governance.”