(Co-author: Matthew Tikhonovsky)
The end of December is a quiet time in Washington, D.C., especially ahead of the change of administration and the new Congress in January, but this week we’re highlighting some recent AI developments coming out of the nation’s capital. On December 16, the U.S. Copyright Office announced that the release of Parts 2 and 3 of its long-awaited report on AI and copyright issues will be delayed until 2025. On December 23, President Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025. (NDAA) directs defense agencies to adopt the use of AI, but does not include comprehensive future AI regulations. Throughout December, President-elect Trump selected more people to guide his administration’s AI policies, including veterans of his first administration and former Silicon Valley executives.
The end of December is a quiet time in Washington, D.C., especially ahead of the change of administration and the new Congress in January. This week’s AI: Washington Report highlights some of the developments that have occurred in the nation’s capital over the past two weeks, from an update on the AI Copyright Report to the new National Defense Act’s AI provisions for the incoming Trump administration’s AI team. Masu.
US Copyright Office delays reporting on AI
The Director of the U.S. Copyright Office announced in a Dec. 16 letter to members of Congress that Parts 2 and 3 of the agency’s long-awaited report on copyright issues posed by AI will be released in 2025. did. 3 was originally scheduled to be released by the end of 2024, but the date was later pushed back to the end of the calendar year. The Copyright Office released Part 1 of its report on July 31, which focused on digital replicas, or “the use of digital technology to realistically reproduce an individual’s voice or physical appearance.” The second part will focus on the copyrightability of generated AI output and will be released “after the New Year holidays,” according to the director’s letter. Part 3 will analyze “legal issues related to the incorporation of copyrighted works to train AI models” and is expected to be published “in the first quarter of 2025.”
The U.S. Copyright Office report on AI was commissioned by President Biden’s Executive Order on AI (AI EO). President-elect Trump is expected to repeal most, if not all, of Biden’s AI EO, raising the possibility that Parts 2 and 3 of the report may never see the light of day.
Biden signs NDAA with AI provisions into law
On December 23, President Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025 into law. This includes a number of AI provisions, as previously discussed. However, these provisions do not substantively regulate the use of AI, even though President Biden and the bipartisan Senate AI Task Force called for substantive and prescriptive AI legislation earlier this year. do not have. The AI in NDAA directs defense agencies to launch pilot programs and initiatives to accelerate the federal government’s adoption and use of AI for defense purposes.
President-elect Trump adds members to AI team in second administration
President-elect Trump has added more candidates to his second administration’s AI team, including veterans of his first administration and former Silicon Valley executives. They will work with President Trump’s AI czar, David Sachs, to guide the incoming administration’s approach to AI, which we wrote about in an article about their views, but whose approach is one that industry is expected to oppose regulations that would be unduly burdensome to the private sector. New picks include:
Michael Kratsios, who served as chief technology officer (CTO) during the first Trump administration, will be the next director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Kratsios is currently a managing director at an AI company and previously worked at an investment firm in Silicon Valley. Lynn Parker, former deputy CTO and director of the Office of National AI Initiatives under the first Trump administration, will become executive director of the President’s Council of Science and Technology Advisers. Mr. Parker has worked in academia for more than 20 years, focusing on AI and other technology issues. Sriram Krishnan is the Senior Policy Advisor for AI at OSTP. Mr. Krishnan previously held senior positions at several Silicon Valley technology companies.
We will continue to monitor, analyze, and publish reports on the Trump administration’s AI approach and policy developments, as well as the future of AI legislation in the 119th Congress.
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