NTIA wants ‘the whole lifecycle of accountability’ to assess AI systems, agency head says

The head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said his agency is looking at how to create an auditing process to hold artificial intelligence systems accountable, as part of an effort to promote safe and ethical uses of the emerging technologies. NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson said “I think one of the things that we've seen is, like financial audits for the financial accounting system, there is going to be a role to play for audits in the AI ecosystem.” NTIA released a request for comment in April 2023 soliciting public feedback on how to mitigate the harms of AI, noting that it would use the input to help “draft and issue a report on AI accountability policy development, focusing especially on the AI assurance ecosystem.” The agency said it received more than 1,400 comments in response to its request. Davidson said the report examines “how can we as policymakers help build this ecosystem, whether it’s through things that we fund [and] things that we press people to adopt?” Davidson said NTIA is “going to look at the whole lifecycle of accountability, starting with the transparency and information that you need to be able to hold models accountable.”