Sen. John Thune (R-SD) Unveils AI Certification Bill
Summary
On November 15, 2023, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) unveiled his long-awaited AI certification bill—the Artificial Intelligence Research, Innovation and Accountability Act (one-pager available here). The legislation outlines content provenance and detection standards to be developed by NIST. NIST is also tasked with developing recommendations for federal agencies on guardrails for “high-risk” AI systems and provides new definitions of “generative,” “high-impact” and “critical impact” systems, with distinctions made between developers and deployers. The bill requires companies deploying “critical-impact AI” to conduct risk assessments and submit transparency reports to the Commerce Department. The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Roger Wicker (R-MS), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM).
