Comment on the Request for Information on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan

o Centro de Escolha do Consumidor is an independent, non-partisan consumer advocacy group championing the benefits of freedom of choice, innovation, and abundance in everyday life. We champion smart policies that are fit for growth, promote lifestyle choice, and defend technological innovation.

Herein, we will offer our comments on NSF, NITRD, and NSF’s development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan, albeit from a consumer-focused perspective of users and promoters of AI technology.

We offer several standing principles that should be central to any plan carried out by the Executive Branch and its agencies, as well as future areas of collaboration to ensure American citizens and consumers will have full access to the fruits of innovation in this space.

Permissionless Innovation

The United States must commit to empowering its markets and innovators by advancing permissionless innovation. In the past half-century, the most impactful inventions and technologies developed on American shores have emerged from the bottom-up, as self-maximizing entrepreneurs and industrialists have competed to feed consumer demand, employ talent, and deliver goods and services needed across the world. 

This status quo has provided dividends for American security and strength, allowing the country to become much nimbler and more adaptive while avoiding the pitfalls of centralized command and control as practiced in China.

In allowing the unprecedented growth of the Internet through light-touch regulation for decades, the U.S. set global standards for tech and innovation. As a result, rules and regulations have emerged over time rather than been imposed by above, giving innovators the ample space and runway to develop both the hardware 

and software that consumers have come to rely on. We must avoid top-down regulatory approaches on AI and other technologies as they have been tried in blue states, which would only serve to stunt our growth.

By shunning the precautionary principle, which hampers far too much innovation and growth elsewhere, the U.S. has embraced a system that rewards risk and punishes failures through market mechanisms rather than bureaucratic mandates. This unique system, matched with deep capital markets, stable rule of law, and protection of intellectual property, has made the U.S. the ideal launching pad for creative pursuits that have created vast amounts of wealth and opportunities.

Recommendation: In adopting an approach to permissionless innovation and avoiding the pitfalls of the precautionary principle, any future AI plan must guard against the instinct to preempt new AI technology or models by requiring burdensome governmental approval or licensing before launch. Only under rare exceptions related to military applications or deemed extremely high-risk should this be avoided.

Energy Supremacy

As a nation blessed with vast natural resources, the United States must continue to allow the development of energy projects of all stripes to continue to feed electricity grids, but also to power the next generation of data centers, transportation, and industry. This will be pivotal to advantage for next-generation AI technology.

Affordable and abundant energy will be a dominant force in freeing up the resources, time, and wealth for the economic and technological growth to remain competitive, as well as providing for the higher standard of living that will be demanded by the American population. For data centers and computing hubs, cheap energy will be requisite for maintaining an edge. 

While still maintaining environmental standards, removing red tape for pipelines, natural gas extraction, offshore wind, and nuclear energy will have to be viewed as an all-encompassing strategy to maintain the country’s energy supremacy and dominance. Outdated infrastructure will have to be replaced, and regulatory systems will have to be streamlined.

Recommendation: Prioritization of red tape reduction for energy projects and an expansion of a diverse energy mix will allow entrepreneurs to create the infrastructure needed to power the AI revolution. Removal of barriers and fast-tracking of projects should be a necessity, as would approval for new energy technologies.

Hardware and chips The federal government should continue a careful approach to chip exports to undemocratic regimes. At the same time, the federal government should consider liberalizing the rules to ally nations, including European Union member states,, understanding that common market structures and economic incentives better align entrepreneurs and consumers in liberal democracies than outside this sphere.

Recommendation: Continue to monitor export of AI-related hardware to authoritarian regimes, while prioritizing trade with ally nations with similar liberal democratic principles.

Open source development vs model development 

As consumers continue to benefit from open-source Large Language Models as well as proprietary models and products, the federal government should allow consumer competition to create the standards for this new era of technology, rather than codifying any requirements, structures, or computation limits into law. Allowing the best entrepreneurs to compete will deliver the most value for consumers who stand to gain from this technology.

Recommendation: Continue light-touch approach toward open-source developers while allowing closed-source developers and deployers of AI technology similar regulatory clarity to launch products for both commercial and personal use. Allow competition to create standards, rather than federal statutes.

Transatlantic cooperation

The US should collaborate with ally countries, especially European Union member states, for a “Free Nation” corridor for simple technology, capital, and product exchange that removes barriers and enshrines innovation in the AI sector. With an open dialogue and standard to be shared among free nations, this will ensure continued benefit to consumers and innovators in these nations, influencing and providing a model for nations that have yet to codify any AI policies into law.

Recommendation: The creation of a “Free Nation” corridor with EU member states to align with the interests of other liberal democracies and better facilitate trade to benefit consumers in the United States in beyond.