The Not-So-Hidden FTC Guidance on Organizational Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), from Data Gathering Through Model Audits

Our last AI post on this blog, the New (if Decidedly Not'Final') Frontier of Artificial Intelligence Regulation, touched on both the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) April 19, 2021, AI guidance and the European Commission's proposed AI Regulation. The recent FTC guidance also relied on older FTC work on AI, including a January 2016 report, "Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion?," The Big Data workshop addressed data modeling, data mining and analytics, and gave us a prospective look at what would become an FTC strategy on AI. The FTC's guidance begins with the data, and the 2016 guidance on big data and subsequent AI development addresses this most directly. The 2020 guidance then highlights important principles such as transparency, explain-ability, fairness, accuracy and accountability for organizations to consider.