Today, the White House proposed a "Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights," a set of principles and practices that seek to guide "the design, use, and deployment of automated systems," with the goal of protecting the rights of Americans in "the age of artificial intelligence," according to the White House. The blueprint is a set of non-binding guidelines--or suggestions--providing a "national values statement" and a toolkit to help lawmakers and businesses build the proposed protections into policy and products. The White House crafted the blueprint, it said, after a year-long process that sought input from people across the country "on the issue of algorithmic and data-driven harms and potential remedies." The document represents a wide-ranging approach to countering potential harms in artificial intelligence. "Among the great challenges posed to democracy today is the use of technology, data, and automated systems in ways that threaten the rights of the American public," reads the foreword of the blueprint.

As data-driven technologies transform the world and artificial intelligence raises questions about bias, privacy and transparency, Suresh Venkatasubramanian is offering his expertise to help create guardrails to ensure that technologies are developed and deployed responsibly. "We need to protect the American people and make sure that technology is used in ways that reinforce our highest values," said Venkatasubramanian, a professor of computer science and data science at Brown University. On the heels of a recently concluded 15-month appointment as an advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Venkatasubramanian returned to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Oct. 4, for the unveiling of "A Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights: Making Automated Systems Work for the American People," during a ceremony at the White House. Venkatasubramanian said the blueprint represents the culmination of 14 months of research and collaboration led by the Office of Science and Technology Policy with partners across the federal government, academia, civil society, the private sector and communities around the country. That collaboration informed the development of the first-ever national guidance focused on the use and deployment of automated technologies that have the potential to impact people's rights, opportunities and access to services.

Verizon is using a fleet of drones over southwest Florida to provide cellular connectivity to first responders who working around the clock in search and rescue missions to find survivors who may be trapped inside one of the more than 400 buildings destroyed by Hurricane Ian. Tethered drones that can fly for up to 1,000 hours are beaming down 4G and 5G coverage for an approximate radius of five to seven miles. Cory Davis, National Director for Verizon Frontline's Response Team and Public Safety Operations, told DailyMail.com He explained that along with the drones, Verizon is using satellites that beam down internet from low Earth orbit, generators hitched to trailers and recently sent a portable cell site on a barge to Sanibel Island, which has been completely cut off by the hurricane. Ian hit Lee County, home to Fort Myers, the hardest and Verizon, which is calling the county'ground zero,' is using the most assets to provide communications for first responders who have rescued hundreds of people since the monster storm made landfall last week.

Amazon exploiting tech to wring every last ounce of productivity from its workforce, Clearview AI harvesting our facial features from social media and public surveillance footage, school proctoring software invading our children's rooms, Facebook's whole "accused of contributing to genocide" thing -- the same machine learning/AI and automation technologies that have brought us the wonders of the modern world have also wrought upon us the horrors of the modern world. And, by golly, the Biden Administration isn't going to stand for it. On Tuesday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released its long-awaited Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights (BoR). The document will, "help guide the design, development, and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated systems so that they protect the rights of the American public," per a White House press release. As such, the BoR will advocate for five principles: Safe and Effective Systems, Algorithmic Discrimination Protections, Data Privacy, Notice and Explanation, and Human Alternatives, Consideration, and Fallback.

Biden has previously called for stronger privacy protections and for tech companies to stop collecting data. But the US--home to some of the world's biggest tech and AI companies--has so far been one of the only Western nations without clear guidance on how to protect its citizens against AI harms. Today's announcement is the White House's vision of how the US government, technology companies, and citizens should work together to hold AI accountable. However, critics say the plan lacks teeth and the US needs even tougher regulation around AI. In September, the administration announced core principles for tech accountability and reform, such as stopping discriminatory algorithmic decision-making, promoting competition in the technology sector, and providing federal protections for privacy.

"This is the Biden-Harris administration really saying that we need to work together, not only just across government, but across all sectors, to really put equity at the center and civil rights at the center of the ways that we make and use and govern technologies," said Alondra Nelson, deputy director for science and society at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "We can and should expect better and demand better from our technologies." The office said the white paper represents a major advance in the administration's agenda to hold technology companies accountable, and highlighted various federal agencies' commitments to weighing new rules and studying the specific impacts of AI technologies. The document emerged after a year-long consultation with more than two dozen different departments, and also incorporates feedback from civil society groups, technologists, industry researchers and tech companies including Palantir and Microsoft. It suggests five core principles that the White House says should be built into AI systems to limit the impacts of algorithmic bias, give users control over their data and ensure that automated systems are used safely and transparently.

Dr. Ronny Shalev is CEO and founder of Dyad Medical Inc. a company that develops FDA-cleared software which automatically analyzes the content of cardiac and cardiovascular images using artificial intelligence. He has spent much of the past 25 years in executive positions, including VP of Sales and Marketing at Orbotech (NASDAQ: ORBK), where he managed teams of more than 100 people worldwide and Director of the World-wide Program Management at Marvell Semiconductor (NASDAQ: MRVL). He has a significant amount of experience as an entrepreneur and is dedicated to using his skills to help physicians make accurate decisions to improve patient outcomes. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from Case Western Reserve University. What initially attracted you to computer science and machine learning?

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications, particularly those focused on biometric data gathering, have recently come under another round of scrutiny both in Europe and Canada. The European Commission proposed the AI Liability Directive last week, a set of rules designed to aid redress for people whose privacy was harmed by AI-powered and digital devices like self-driving cars, voice assistants and drones. According to BBC reporting, the Directive may operate alongside the EU's proposed AI Act if successfully turned into law, introducing a "presumption of causality" for those claiming injuries by AI-enabled products. In other words, individuals harmed by these systems would not have to provide technical explanations for how AI systems work but merely show how they have harmed them in practical terms. "The objective of this proposal is to promote the rollout of trustworthy AI to harvest its full benefits for the internal market. It does so by ensuring victims of damage caused by AI obtain equivalent protection to victims of damage caused by products in general," reads the text of the Directive.

The news: US President Biden has today unveiled a new AI Bill of Rights, which outlines five protections Americans should have in the AI age. Biden has in the past called for better privacy safeguards and for tech companies to stop collecting data. But the US -- home to some of the world's biggest tech and AI companies -- has so far been one of the only Western nations without clear guidance on how to protect its citizens against AI harms. Why it matters: AI is a powerful technology that is transforming our societies. The announcement is the White House's vision of how the US government as well as technology companies and citizens should work together to hold AI accountable.

Last year, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced that the US needed a bill of rights for the age of algorithms. Harms from artificial intelligence disproportionately impact marginalized communities, the office's director and deputy director wrote in a WIRED op-ed, and so government guidance was needed to protect people against discriminatory or ineffective AI. Today, the OSTP released the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, after gathering input from companies like Microsoft and Palantir as well as AI auditing startups, human rights groups, and the general public. Its five principles state that people have a right to control how their data is used, to opt out of automated decision-making, to live free from ineffective or unsafe algorithms, to know when AI is making a decision about them, and to not be discriminated against by unfair algorithms. "Technologies will come and go, but foundational liberties, rights, opportunities, and access need to be held open, and it's the government's job to help ensure that's the case," Alondra Nelson, OSTP deputy director for science and society, told WIRED.