Week 24: What's Happening in AI

RIL AI policy roundtable, updates on the EU’s AI Act, and divides in AI investment.

Welcome to this week’s edition of What's Happening in AI - a collection of what we’re reading at RIL on AI policy, development, deployment, and the future.

This week, we’re giving you some more on AI policy. Get up to speed on takeaways from the RIL AI policy roundtable, updates on the EU’s AI Act, and divides in AI investment.

First: Responsible Innovation Labs AI Investor Roundtable Readout

Responsible Innovation Labs hosted 20 investors representing a combined $600B+ AUM to discuss AI policy and governance this week. One takeaway: there’s debate about the future but there’s broad consensus on the urgency to figure out best practices for responsible AI investment.

| Policy

United States

Ahead of increasing calls for federal regulation on AI, AI lobbying has spiked 185% between 2022 and 2023. “AI standards, please,” says the tech industry to NIST.

Elections

Ahead of elections, states focus on misinformation: Colorado Senator proposed a bill re: AI transparency, user education, and auditing standards and the legislature proposed a deepfakes bill. In New Hampshire, officials opened a criminal probe into AI calls that impersonated President Biden. In response, the FCC has now made it illegal to use AI-generated voices in robocalls. Opinion: Governments should act to combat disinformation

Europe

European Union

Member countries struck an AI Act deal last week after continued negotiations, notably getting skeptical member nations onboard by promising to protect space for their “budding AI champions” (e.g., German company Aleph Alpha and French company Mistral). The AI Act still needs final approval and could be slowed by amendments. Likely timeline: committee approval in two weeks, final European Parliament vote in April.

More from the EU:

United Kingdom

Last week, the UK House of Lords published a report calling for regulation on near-term risks posed by LLMs. And early this week, the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DIST) announced $12.5M to regulators tasked with applying existing standards to AI and $113M for UK AI development across sectors like healthcare. Read the official statement from DIST here.

Analysis: On AI regulation, the EU and the U.K. set wildly divergent courses as the UK attempts to be more “industry friendly” whereas the EU focuses on potential harm reduction.

Asia

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) published AI governance last week, but critics say it will face challenges given the differing levels of AI sophistication of ASEAN member nations. In other news, tensions between the US and China regarding tech development continue to heat up as the US adds more Chinese companies to a list of companies connected to the Chinese government.

| AI development + deployment

Investment

Chips

Data

Industry ethics

Deepfakes

| Where AI is going

Industry trends

Global policy trends

Security

New uses

Startups, raises, and releases

ICYMI

Thanks for reading. Feel free to get in touch with your questions, thoughts, or recommendations for next time.