CED Provides Plan to Capitalize on AI While Safeguarding Against Its Risks

The Committee for Economic Development (CED), the public policy center of The Conference Board, has issued a new Solutions Brief, Principles for AI Guardrails in the US. It explores the need for guardrails on AI to ensure its safety and security while promoting innovation and encouraging US competitiveness.

The Solutions Brief—the latest in CED’s Sustaining Capitalism series—comes as policymakers and business leaders face both the challenges and opportunities that the rapid development of AI brings. AI has the potential to reshape society, the economy, and national security profoundly. Yet its integration into a growing number of applica­tions also comes with novel risks ranging from bias and inaccuracy to misuse, disinformation, and weaponization.

As the Solutions Brief emphasizes, to strengthen US technological leadership and national security, lawmakers should develop a policy framework that ensures responsible AI development and use.

“The pace of change that AI promises demands that the US take a proactive approach. Only through collaboration between policymakers and business leaders will the US be able to develop the strategic framework necessary to accelerate AI advances and adoption in a responsible manner,” said John Gardner, Vice President, Public Policy at CED.

Key Recommendations

Establishing a national AI framework is essential for continued US leadership in the global AI race, ensuring the AI revolution can proceed safely and securely to benefit all Americans. CED’s recommendations include:

The US Should Aim to Lead in AI

• Commit to the initiatives necessary to lead the global AI race, promoting pathways for innovation and establishing a federal framework that can catalyze responsible development and deployment. Clear rules will provide innovators with the certainty to drive progress.

Promote Innovation

• Calibrate standards to promote innovation and not hamper US competitiveness, focusing on propelling advances in AI reliability, model testing, and risk assessment.

Prioritize Transparency

• Ensure transparency responsibilities commensurate with the risk level of an AI application and each entity’s role: AI developers should test and disclose information on their products based on standardized benchmarks, while AI deployers should be transparent in certain circumstances to end users about the use of AI and test any changes they have made to models.

Apply a Risk-Based Approach to Setting Standards

• Establish a classification system based on the risk associated with the application in which AI is deployed, with heightened transparency obligations targeting high-risk applications and lesser requirements for lower-risk use cases to preserve space for innovation.

Protect Data Privacy

• Handle sensitive personal data under heightened scrutiny and consider establishing an “unacceptable risk” tier that would prohibit activities such dark pattern analysis or behavioral monitoring. For certain use cases, users should retain the right to control their data and have it deleted.

Clarify AI Intellectual Property Rights & Liability

• Review and evaluate on the treatment of copyrighted works collected or used for AI training, intellectual property rights of AI-generated content, and the extent of liability for AI developers and users.

Collaborate with International Allies

• Expand and lead international collaboration on AI principles, seeking framework interoperability with allied partners while leveraging broad cooperation and cutting-edge AI-powered solutions to address risks from malicious actors such as cyber, biochemicals, misinformation, and other weaponization.

Mitigate Environmental Impact

• Address the interconnection backlog of renewable energy resources to build grid capacity and resilience, while ensuring that AI research and deployment initiatives drive efficiencies that can offset AI’s new capacity demands.

Invest in Workforce & Literacy

• Invest in a skilled and adaptive US workforce through expanding training and apprenticeship opportunities; reinvigorating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; and promoting broad AI literacy.

About The Conference Board

The Conference Board is the member-driven think tank that delivers Trusted Insights for What's Ahead^®. Founded in 1916, we are a non-partisan, not-for-profit entity holding 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in the United States. ConferenceBoard.org

The Committee for Economic Development (CED) is the public policy center of The Conference Board. The nonprofit, nonpartisan, business-led organization delivers well-researched analysis and reasoned solutions in the nation’s interest. CED Trustees are chief executive officers and key executives of leading US companies who bring their unique experience to address today’s pressing policy issues. Collectively, they represent 30+ industries and over 4 million employees. ConferenceBoard.org/us/Committee-Economic-Development