Analysis | Top tech companies seek more cash for the lab keeping AI safe - The Washington Post

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Hi again! I’m filling in for your usual host Cristiano Lima-Strong, who has been working around-the-clock to bring you the latest news about Congress’s potential TikTok ban. It’s great to be back in your inboxes during this busy week for tech policy news! As always, send tips to cat.zakrzewski@washpost.com. Today:

Top tech companies seek more cash for the lab keeping AI safe

Leading AI companies, universities and civil society groups on Tuesday called Congress to expand funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the decaying federal agency at the heart of the Biden administration’s ambitious plans to evaluate a new generation of artificial intelligence models.

Amazon, OpenAI, the ACLU and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the more than 80 signatories of the letter, which says increasing the agency’s funding is “essential to maintain America’s technological leadership.”

The letter asks House and Senate appropriators to prioritize NIST’s request of $47.7 million in additional funding, which could support the growing work of its AI Safety Institute.

“This is the single most important reform we can do in the short term to ensure this technology is set on the right course,” said Brad Carson, the president of the Americans for Responsible Innovation, an advocacy group that helped lead the letter.

NIST and congressional appropriators did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the letter.

The request cites a Washington Post investigation that found years of funding challenges have left NIST with skeletal staffing and crumbling facilities, threatening the agency’s ability to oversee advanced AI systems.

Black mold has forced some workers out of their offices, and leaky ceilings have damaged expensive lab equipment. Because weak internet connections in some buildings don’t allow for the sending of large files, some employees have to carry hard drives around campus.

In response to The Post’s findings, the Commerce Department has said that the AI staff will be working in well-equipped offices on the Gaithersburg campus, the Commerce Department’s D.C. office, and the NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in Rockville, Md. And Congress has since allocated $10 million for NIST’s AI Safety Institute. But the letter’s authors say more is needed for the agency to advance AI research and testing.

More aid could come if the White House’s 2025 budget request is fulfilled, which calls for $312 million for maintenance and construction at NIST, a critical increase.

The institute has also been expanding staff, and last week the Commerce Department announced several new hires, including Paul Christiano, who will serve as head of AI Safety. Christiano, who founded the Alignment Research Center, has written about AI’s potential harms. In 2023, he wrote that there is a 20 percent probability that humans will die within 10 years of building powerful AI.

Carson said the recent hires are a positive step but added NIST needs to double the number of people it has working on AI initiatives “to do the work that Congress and the president are expecting of them.”

Yet even as AI initiatives emerge as a priority, NIST’s overall budget has been cut by about 10 percent since the previous fiscal year, the letter notes, warning that this cut “presents major operational challenges to NIST’s efforts to sustainably guide responsible development of AI systems.”

The challenges underscore the limits of regulating AI through executive order, because Congress needs to act to ensure new initiatives have adequate funding. In a heated election year, it’s unclear if Congress will prioritize lawmakers’ numerous efforts to pass AI legislation.

Carson says while that outcome is doubtful, funding NIST seems “very doable.”

Carson has held private meetings with about two dozen lawmakers over the last two months, and he says there is bipartisan support to increase NIST’s funding.

“Congress is just trying to come to terms about what AI even is,” he said. “But all of them … can see the case that NIST is going to play an important role in this and that we can’t neglect it.”

The Federal Communications Commission hosts an open meeting on Thursday at 10:30 a.m.
The Washington Post Live hosts an event, “Disparities in Digital Access,” featuring FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel on Friday at 9 a.m.

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Just a month later, federal lawmakers are again taking up legislation to force video-sharing app TikTok to be sold or banned in the United States over national security concerns. This time, it may have an easier path to the president’s desk. Republican House leaders this week unveiled an unconventional plan to tuck the TikTok crackdown into foreign aid packages, a tactic which could fast-track the proposal, maneuvering the stand-alone bill that has stalled in the Senate. On Saturday, the House voted 360 to 58 to pass the bill which included the measure about TikTok.
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