A new bipartisan bill would require the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop detailed guidelines for third-party evaluators to work with artificial intelligence companies to provide independent external verification of their systems.
Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., officially introduced the Validation and Evaluation for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (VET AI) Act on Wednesday, alongside Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who is a co-sponsor on the bill.
Sen. Hickenlooper announced his plan to introduce the bill earlier this month, but he did not yet have a bipartisan co-sponsor.
Under the bill, NIST would collaborate with Federal agencies, industry, academia, and civil society to create detailed specifications and guidelines for third-party evaluators. These guidelines would enable evaluators to provide rigorous independent assurance and verification of AI systems’ development and testing.
The bill specifies that guidelines must address data privacy, mitigation of potential harms, dataset quality, and governance throughout the AI development lifecycle.
The bill would also require NIST to study the AI assurance ecosystem, including current capabilities, resources needed, and market demand. It would also create an Advisory Committee to recommend certification criteria for AI assurance providers.
“AI is moving faster than any of us thought it would two years ago,” Sen. Hickenlooper said in a statement. “But we have to move just as fast to get sensible guardrails in place to develop AI responsibly before it’s too late. Otherwise, AI could bring more harm than good to our lives.”
According to the senator, AI companies make claims about how they train, conduct safety red-team exercises, and carry out risk management on their AI models without any external verification. This legislation brings that external validation into the mix, he said.
“This commonsense bill will allow for a voluntary set of guidelines for AI, which will only help the development of systems that choose to adopt them,” said Sen. Capito.
