Only Congress and DARPA can rein in the dangers of AI

AI is stretching the boundaries of existing internet protocols. A working group between DARPA, NIST and other federal agencies could help.

Some people claim that the United States federal government “invented the internet.” While that‘s not quite true, many of the fundamental protocols that define the internet — HTTP, TCP/IP, SMTP, DNS, and others — were the product of deep collaboration between government and academic researchers. Part of their power lies in their openness, which facilitated broad interoperability and a level playing field for everyone from individuals to large corporations to communicate online. It’s also partly why no one made billions off the introduction of HTTP — the fact that no one owned these protocols is what made them such a powerful tool for global communication and commerce.

That leads us to the next “epoch-defining” technology: AI. Revolutionary though it is, generative AI comes to us via these same protocols. In part, that’s a testament to their scalability and forward-thinking design. Yet as AI capabilities advance, it seems likely to stretch the bounds of our existing internet protocols.

To fully harness the power of AI — and to maintain some semblance of order during a tumultuous technological revolution — we’ll need new protocols. And just like with the internet, the U.S. federal government, working in collaboration with academia and the private sector, is well-positioned to bring these into existence.

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