Today, as the AI Seoul Summit begins, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo released a strategic vision for the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (AISI), describing the department’s approach to AI safety under President Biden’s leadership. At President Biden’s direction, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) within the Department of Commerce launched the AISI, building on NIST’s long-standing work on AI. In addition to releasing a strategic vision, Raimondo also shared the department’s plans to work with a global scientific network for AI safety through meaningful engagement with AI Safety Institutes and other government-backed scientific offices, and to convene the institutes later this year in the San Francisco area, where the AISI recently established a presence.

Commerce Department AI Safety Institute Strategic Vision

The strategic vision released today, available here, outlines the steps that the AISI plans to take to advance the science of AI safety and facilitate safe and responsible AI innovation. At the direction of President Biden, NIST established the AISI and has since built an executive leadership team that brings together some of the brightest minds in academia, industry and government.

The strategic vision describes the AISI’s philosophy, mission and strategic goals.  Rooted in two core principles — first, that beneficial AI depends on AI safety; and second, that AI safety depends on science — the AISI aims to address key challenges, including a lack of standardized metrics for frontier AI, underdeveloped testing and validation methods, limited national and global coordination on AI safety issues, and more. 

The AISI will focus on three key goals: 

1. Advance the science of AI safety;
2. Articulate, demonstrate, and disseminate the practices of AI safety; and
3. Support institutions, communities, and coordination around AI safety.  

Read the full Department of Commerce release.