A Playbook for AI Policy

NEW YORK, NY — Artificial intelligence (AI) is shaping up to be one of the most consequential technologies in human history. How can the United States maintain its strategic lead in AI development, advance its national security interests, and ensure AI safety? A new Manhattan Institute report by fellow Nick Whitaker offers answers, presenting a primer on the history of AI development and principles for guiding AI policy.

Whitaker’s report is divided into two sections. The first details the recent history of AI and the major policy issues concerning the technology, including the methods of evaluating the strength of AI, controlling AI systems, the possibility of AI agents, and the global competition for AI. The second section proposes four key principles that can shape the future of AI and the policies that accompany them. These include:

• The U.S. must retain, and further invest in, its strategic lead in AI development. This can be achieved by defending top American AI labs from hacking and espionage; dominating the market for top AI talent; deregulating energy production and data-center construction; jump-starting domestic advanced chip production; and restricting the flow of advanced AI technology and models to adversarial countries.
• The U.S. must protect against AI-powered threats from state and non-state actors. This can be done by evaluating models with special attention to their weapons applications; conducting oversight for AI training of only the strongest models; defending high-risk supply chains; and implementing mandatory incident reporting when AIs do not function as they should.
• The U.S. must build state capacity for AI. This can be achieved by making greater investments in the federal departments that research AI; recruiting top AI talent into government; increasing investment in AI research in neglected domains; standardizing the policies for how the three leading AI labs intend to pursue their AI research in the event that issues arise with new, frontier models; and encouraging the use of AI in the federal government.
• The U.S. must protect human integrity and dignity in the age of AI. To that end, government should monitor the current and future impacts of AI on jobs markets. Furthermore, government should ban nonconsensual deepfake pornographic material and require the disclosure of the use of AI in political advertising (though not ban it). Because of AI’s ability to manipulate an image of a human being, attention must be paid to preventing malicious psychological and reputational damage to an AI model’s subject.

Click here to view the full report.