AI
Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director of the non-profit Accountable Tech, said in a statement that Newsom’s decision “is a massive giveaway to Big Tech companies and an affront to all Americans who are currently the uncontested guinea pigs” of the AI industry.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech, an advocacy nonprofit, said the veto is a “massive giveaway to Big Tech companies and an affront to all Americans who are currently the unconsenting guinea pigs of an unregulated and untested AI industry.”
Zach Praiss Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047) — a landmark bill that would have implemented crucial guardrails around AI development, including requiring pre-deployment safety testing and third-party auditing. The bill passed the State Legislature with broad bipartisan support but was opposed by Big Tech companies including Meta, OpenAI, and Google.
Giliann Karon A new joint letter from dozens of civil society organizations, including watchdog Accountable Tech, calls for social media companies to implement safeguards against the rampant spread of political deepfakes.
Zach Praiss A mobile billboard, deployed by Accountable Tech, is seen outside the Meta headquarters on Jan. 17, 2023, in Menlo Park, Calif.
Zach Praiss Mobile billboard is seen near the U.S. Capitol on September 12, 2023 in Washington, DC. NGOs highlight artificial intelligence (AI)’s dangers to climate change.
Zach Praiss The AI roadmap is “but another proof point of Big Tech’s profound and pervasive power to shape the policymaking process,” as Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gillput it Wednesday. “Lawmakers must move quickly to enact AI legislation that centers the public interest and addresses the damage AI is currently causing in communities all across the country.”
Giliann Karon Accountable Tech co-founder and executive director Nicole Gill said the report is “but another proof point of Big Tech’s profound and pervasive power to shape the policymaking process” and called the forums a “dream scenario for the tech industry.”
Giliann Karon Nicole Gill, Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director: "The AI roadmap released today by Sen. Schumer is but another proof point of Big Tech’s profound and pervasive power to shape the policymaking process. The last year of closed-door ‘Insight Forums’ has been a dream scenario for the tech industry, who played an outsized role in developing this roadmap and delaying legislation."
Giliann Karon Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill issued the following statement on Senator Schumer’s AI roadmap.
Giliann Karon
Giliann Karon It's hard to know who to trust in politics these days. Can we even trust ourselves? Artificial intelligence has already made its presence felt in this year’s election, from AI-generated ads to fake Biden robocalls, and it can be very hard to tell what’s real. Nicole Gill founded Accountable Tech four years ago to monitor AI’s increasing impact on politics. She talks to CNN Political Director David Chalian about the biggest threats it presents, and how lawmakers are responding in real time.
Giliann Karon "It is offering new ways of spreading disinformation, like the audio and video content, especially, but it's mostly just turbocharging existing efforts and making it a lot cheaper and easier," Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director at the watchdog group Accountable Tech, says.
Zach Praiss Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech, a nonprofit watchdog group, told the AP that Twitter used to be one of the "most responsible" platforms. “Obviously now they’re on the exact other end of the spectrum,” he said.
Zach Praiss Climate and tech advocacy groups are pressing the Biden administration to address concerns about the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on climate change...The letter was signed by 17 groups, including Friends of the Earth, Accountable Tech and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Zach Praiss The groups sent a letter to the White House urging the Biden administration, including national climate advisor Ali Zaidi, to add more climate-centered policies in its AI executive order released earlier in October. Seventeen groups signed the letter, including Accountable Tech.
Zach Praiss We applaud President Biden’s Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence for its commitment to protecting the safety and well-being of people in the face of rapid AI development and deployment.
Zach Praiss The letter was signed by 20 groups, including the Athena Coalition, Public Citizen, Accountable Tech and the Open Markets Institute. As Congress drafts regulations, the groups urged lawmakers to prioritize the heath, safety and wages of data workers that develop and train AI.
Zach Praiss The lawmakers first introduced the AI Labeling Act in July and on Tuesday are unveiling a list of supporters backing the effort, including consumer groups like Common Sense Media, Public Citizen and Accountable Tech.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech, Al Now and the Electronic Privacy Information Center put forth an Al governance framework in August that accused Al companies of calling for regulation while 'privately lobbying against meaningful accountability measures. "Given the monumental stakes, blind trust in their benevolence is not an option," the groups wrote.
Zach Praiss Today, Accountable Tech launched a digital ad buy and a new report highlighting Big Tech’s alarming history of making and then breaking their own public commitments on privacy and safety.
Zach Praiss “Big tech has shown us what ‘self-regulation’ looks like, and it looks a lot like their own self-interest,” said Bianca Recto, communications director for Accountable Tech. “Senators must go into this week’s AI hearings with their eyes wide open – or risk once again getting fooled by savvy PR at the expense of our safety.”
Victoria Vinall Accountable Tech, AI Now, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) released the Zero Trust AI Governance Framework in response to self-regulatory approaches popular among top AI companies. The framework laid out overarching principles for future regulation. These included a call for policymakers to apply existing laws to the industry such as anti-discrimination, consumer protection, and competition laws alongside clarifying Section 230’s limits. The framework also suggested establishing clearly defined policies without room for subjectivity such as prohibiting facial recognition used for mass surveillance and fully automated hiring processes. Finally, the framework placed the burden on AI companies to prove that their systems are not harmful with systems subject to pre- and post-deployment harm mitigation requirements.
Victoria Vinall Nonprofits Accountable Tech, AI Now, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) released policy proposals that seek to limit how much power big AI companies have on regulation that could also expand the power of government agencies against some uses of generative AI.
Victoria Vinall The Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive DC-based think tank, and a group of civil society groups that includes Accountable Tech, AI Now Institute, and EPIC, released their respective priorities to coincide with the AI Cyber Challenge kickoff.
Victoria Vinall With Big Tech jockeying to secure a new era of self-regulation amid the AI arms race, leading civil society organizations Accountable Tech, AI Now Institute, and EPIC jointly released a new “Zero Trust AI Governance” framework Thursday.
Zach Praiss At a moment when policymakers are racing the clock to harness the potential and curb the dangers of AI, we applaud the Biden Administration for its leadership in bringing the largest AI companies together around a set of basic voluntary safeguards.
Zach Praiss Instead of welcoming Altman with a bipartisan steak dinner in his honor, Congress must subject the new Zuckerberg to the scrutiny his technology merits and the public deserves.
Zach Praiss Congress’s slowness to deal with those and other major issues related to Big Tech “certainly undermines our ability to now grapple with something like generative AI, which is moving at such a rapid pace,” said Jesse Lehrich, co-founder and senior advisor at Accountable Tech, a tech watchdog group.
Victoria Vinall Left-leaning advocacy group Accountable Tech has hired five new staff members: Robbie Dornbush as its chief of staff, who previously served as chief of staff and special assistant to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Bianca Recto as its communications director, who previously served as communications director for media start-up More Perfect Union. Nash Alam as its senior aampaign manager, who previous was a digital organizer for Groundwork Collaborative. Alison Rice as its campaign manager for youth initiatives, who previously worked with the Hub Project and NextGen America. Alyssa Sanchez as its operations manager, who previously worked with Oregon Futures Lab.
Victoria Vinall The rapid escalation of the AI arms race really underscores how far the U.S. has fallen behind in regulating Big Tech.
Zach Praiss “The rapid escalation of the AI arms race that ChatGPT has catalyzed really underscores how far behind Congress is when it comes to regulating technology and the cost of their failure,” said Jesse Lehrich, a co-founder of the left-leaning watchdog Accountable Tech and a former aide to Hillary Clinton.
Victoria Vinall 
Big Tech companies are some of the most powerful and profitable companies in history, presenting new threats to the safety of communities and the health of democracy. We’re taking them on through legislation, regulation and direct advocacy.