OpenAI calls for US to centralize AI regulation

OpenAI executives think the federal government should regulate artificial intelligence in the US, taking precedence over often more restrictive state regulations.

In its contribution to a government consultation on AI regulation filed Thursday, the company also pointed to AI regulatory efforts in China as a threat to US developers — but then suggested that the US should embrace a similar model of AI vendors and government cooperation.

It suggested the government open up to voluntary partnerships with the private sector, neutralizing any advantage China might gain from US AI companies having to comply with “overly burdensome state laws.” In its 15-page filing it advised the government to “create a sandbox for American start-ups and provide participating companies with liability protections including preemption from state-based regulations that focus on frontier model security.”

OpenAI also asked for the government to “provide American AI companies with the tools and classified threat intelligence to mitigate national security risks.”

Act of congress

It buried in a footnote on page 6 was the acknowledgement that the White House can’t legally make these changes without legislative support: “Federal preemption over existing or prospective state laws will require an act of Congress.”

The filing also said that OpenAI wants to have the freedom to train on information, despite any legal protections that forbid it. “The federal government can both secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI, and avoid forfeiting our AI lead to the PRC by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material.”

The filing was a response to the federal Office of Science and Technology’s request for comments on developing a federal AI Action Plan. It was one of more than 300 comments initially received. 

Forrester Senior Analyst Alla Valente said OpenAI’s statement was “telling everyone what they want to hear. It was absolutely leaning into what the White House wants to hear: If you are a developer, we want you to innovate to your heart’s content and to get rid of all of those pesky state regulations.”

Other analysts agreed, suggesting that state AI laws are likely to be more rigorous, especially about protecting their citizens’ rights, privacy and security. 

From an enterprise IT perspective, the longshot proposal could be attractive — not necessarily from a weaker compliance perspective, but from having fewer rules to follow. More critically, the process would reduce having to follow rules that contradict each other.

Many enterprise IT executives work for multinationals. Even if their operations are solely in the US, they likely have operations and partners in other countries. That means that enterprises already have to deal with many AI compliance rules — especially in Australia, the EU, the UK, Canada and Japan — some of which are contradictory.

Valente said that despite OpenAI’s statement stressing simplicity, “It could create more complexity. Simplicity would be global cooperation. Enterprise IT leaders are asking, ‘What does this mean for the customers I already have in regions with very different requirements?’”

Reece Hayden, lead AI analyst with ABI Research, applauded that OpenAI also talked about supporting infrastructure issues such as modernizing the US energy grids. “Those kinds of points have been overshadowed” by efficiency and security details.

Another analyst, IDC research VP Dave Schubmehl, was also skeptical that the OpenAI proposal would go very far.

“I think AI regulation at the state level is probably a foregone conclusion,” Schubmehl, “but this is a valiant attempt by OpenAI to centralize regulation.”