AI Standards

On Feb. 11, 2019, President Donald J. Trump issued the Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (EO 13859). Among its objectives, the EO aims to "Ensure that technical standards minimize vulnerability to attacks from malicious actors and reflect Federal priorities for innovation, public trust, and public confidence in systems that use AI technologies; and develop international standards to promote and protect those priorities." The EO directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create "a plan for Federal engagement in the development of technical standards and related tools in support of reliable, robust, and trustworthy systems that use AI technologies." NIST is committed to fulfilling that responsibility in a timely way, engaging the public and private sectors in producing a plan within 180 days. The EO's language provides directions and a 180-day timetable for NIST to deliver the plan for federal standards-related engagement: "Sec.