The Problem With Public-Private Partnerships in AI
- The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) has argued that the consolidation of the AI industry threatens the U.S. technological competitiveness, with market concentration and the capture of resources for AI development being key factors.
- The commission also identified a connection between a lack of diversity in who gets to build AI and what kinds of AI get built as a result.
- Last month, the National Science Foundation announced details about the launch of its proposed solution: a pilot version of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), established through the recent White House executive order on AI.
- The NAIRR pilot is a small-scale implementation of a broader $2.6 billion proposal, articulated in the CREATE AI Act, that would need congressional approval and appropriations to be brought into being.
- The NAIRR was born out of a bold vision that there are limits to innovation driven by profit and that public investment is crucial to escape that paradigm.
- However, it remains at risk of entrenching the interests it claims to contest.
- In the current paradigm for large-scale AI research, all roads lead to a small number of the largest technology companies, ensuring that the pursuit of public innovation will manifest itself in a partnership with the private sector.
- The scale of this project draws attention to the complete lack of a level playing field when it comes to AI.
- The Biden administration has consistently sought to tackle the consolidated economic power of large firms across policy domains from trade to technology.
- For initiatives like the NAIRR to cohere with these other policy positions, it must contest with the effects of market consolidation.
