The AI Policy Race: How Would You Rank the US, EU, UK, and China?

Written By Megan Yung

On October 30, 2023, President Joe Biden issued an executive order (the “Order”) on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, to provide the initial framework for coordinated governmentwide assessment of how to govern the use and development of AI across different fields and industries.

It is no secret that the US wants to maintain a place at the forefront of the worldwide innovation race, and this Order is seen by some as a way to assert dominance as a trendsetter amongst the larger group of global AI policy makers, while others view it as the US hastily pushing out policies to not get left behind by the EU, UK, and China. Indeed, the race is on and the attention on AI policy is only increasing given the sheer number of companies cropping up this year using AI in various innovative ways and across different sectors, e.g. AI x Biotech x BioManufacturing.

The concept of AI regulation is not a novel one, however. If you’ll remember:

·         the non-binding Recommendation on AI issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) in 2019;

·         the Recommendations on the Ethics of AI issued by UNESCO in 2021;

·         the Council of Europe’s Committee on Artificial Intelligence 2023 Draft Framework;

·         the EU’s Legislation in Progress for the Artificial Intelligence Act, June 2023; goal is to reach an agreement by the end of 2023;

and more concretely:

·         the Algorithm Recommendation Regulation issued by the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), effective March 1,2022;

·         the Deep Synthesis Regulation jointly adopted by the Cyberspace Administration of China (“CAC”), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (“MIIT”), and the Ministry of Public Security (“MPS”), effective January 10, 2023; and

·         the Generative AI Regulation jointly adopted by the CAC, the MIIT, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, and the MPS, effective August 15, 2023.

It seems that the US and the rest of the world has some catching up to do. All this being said, the so-called race to be a global trendsetter in AI policy is not won simply by being the first to establish policies regulating AI, but to be one of the first to establish realistic, functional, and enforceable policies to govern AI’s use and development. We are certainly in exciting times and eagerly await the outcome(s) of the Order (roughly a year long timeline with key requirements detailed in the Order) and the resolution of the negotiations in the EU.

Please feel free to contact Y Innovations if you have any questions or would like to discuss how the above may affect your company, research, development, and implementation of AI-related or dependent products. Please also feel free to send us a message about what you’d like us to write about next.

Megan Yung