Category: Publications

The Biden administration’s new “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” is simultaneously a big step forward and a disappointment. Released last week, the blueprint articulates a set of principles that could address some of the major concerns about artificial intelligence design and deployment. But policymakers will need to do more to achieve an elusive objective: trust in AI.

AI’s trust problems have been apparent for some time. In 2021, the National Institute for Standards published a paper explaining the relationship between artificial intelligence systems and the consumers and firms who use AI systems to make decisions. The AI user has to trust the AI system because of its complexity, unpredictability, and lack of moral or ethical capacity, changing the dynamic between user and system into a relationship. So if AI designers and deployers want AI to be trusted, they must encourage trustworthy behavior by the system as well as trust in the system.

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Data is different from other inputs. Researchers in the public and private sectors can reuse troves of data indefinitely without that data losing its value. Individuals can use the same data for multiple purposes. They can create new products or research complex problems. Hence, data is multidimensional. It can simultaneously be a commercial asset and a public good.

Firms have long relied on data to improve the efficiency and quality of goods and services. However, today market actors also utilize data to create entirely new services, such as personalized healthcare. Data-driven sectors such as social networks and artificial-intelligence services are the foundation of today’s global economy. These sectors also enabled much of the world to function during the pandemic.

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Policymakers around the world are searching for ways to punish Russian leaders for their aggression in Ukraine. They have generally relied on economic and financial sanctions. But sanctions are an imperfect tool. They can lead to higher prices and limited supplies of various goods and services in the home market, and sanctions may not change the target country’s behavior. A review of U.S. history illuminates an alternative approach, one that may attract the support of other nations.

The U.S. and its allies can deny most-favored-nation status to Russia, as Reps. Lloyd Doggett and Earl Blumenauer have proposed. (The U.S. uses the terminology “normal trade relations” to signify that a nation that has this status isn’t actually more favored than any other nation.) Most-favored nation status is a guiding principle of trade rules. Should the U.S. and other nations deny Russia this status, they will be free to impose tariffs on Russian exports. The cost of Russian goods will rise, making these products more expensive and gradually less desirable. Over time, Russia’s coffers will be harder to fill.

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