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White House urges relaxed regulations on AI

Administration says federal regulators will have to abide by new principles.

Rae Hodge Former senior editor
Rae Hodge was a senior editor at CNET. She led CNET's coverage of privacy and cybersecurity tools from July 2019 to January 2023. As a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, she reviewed VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech. Prior to joining CNET in 2019, Rae spent nearly a decade covering politics and protests for the AP, NPR, the BBC and other local and international outlets.
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Joyce N. Boghosian/The White House

The White House apparently doesn't want too much regulation to get in the way of advancements in artificial intelligence. On Tuesday, the White House released 10 regulatory principles that aim to govern the development and use of AI technologies in the private sector. 

The White House directed federal regulators to consider "fairness, non-discrimination, openness, transparency, safety, and security" when weighing regulatory action related to AI, and to consider public feedback on proposed regulations. The White House said its principles are designed to drive innovation and limit regulatory over reach. 

"By reducing regulatory uncertainty for America's innovators, increasing public input on regulatory decisions, and promoting trustworthy AI development, the principles offer the American approach to address the challenging technical and ethical issues that arise with AI technologies," said Michael Kratsios, chief technology officer of the United States, in a release. 

The principals build on an AI strategy created by the Obama administration and later updated by President Donald Trump in a 2019 executive order.

The proposal document will be open for public comment before being finalized and sent to federal agencies. The White House said agencies will have to demonstrate to the White House that any proposed regulations relating to AI abide by the document's principles.