Step aside world, the US wants to write the AI rules

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The writer is founder of Sifted, an FT-backed site about European start-ups

Kamala Harris scores high marks for honesty even if she may not graduate top in diplomacy. Standing alongside US president Joe Biden before he signed Monday’s executive order regulating artificial intelligence, the vice-president spelled out her country’s intent to remain the world’s technological hegemon and write its own rules of the game.

“Let us be clear: when it comes to AI, America is a global leader. It is American companies that lead the world in AI innovation. It is America that can catalyse global action and build global consensus in a way that no other country can,” Harris said, pointedly. Then, she flew off to the UK government’s Bletchley Park summit on AI safety.

The executive order, which focuses on current harms such as privacy, security, discrimination and disinformation, involves more than 25 government agencies. It is the most comprehensive attempt to date to regulate the world’s biggest AI companies. It will prove far more consequential than the worthy but toothless Bletchley Declaration, agreed this week by 28 countries and the EU.

This executive order was “imperfect, but comes far closer to laying out real policy”, wrote Gary Marcus, chief executive of the Centre for the Advancement of Trustworthy AI.

America’s domination of AI research and development is hard to overstate. According to the 2023 State of AI report, the US produced more than 70 per cent of the most cited AI research papers over the past three years, followed by China and the UK. Led by Google, Meta and Microsoft, US-based companies and universities account for nine of the top 10 research institutions. The one exception, London-based DeepMind, was bought by Google in 2014.

The wealth, power and ambition of the three US tech giants remain unmatched. In 2022 the corporate…