House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Ranking Member shared a recorded statement today congratulating NIST on the completion of the AI Risk Management Framework. The Framework was mandated by the bipartisan AI Initiative Act as a tool for industry, academia, and government at all levels to implement best practices that promote safe and trusty AI.

Read the full script here: 

I’m Frank Lucas, Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. I’m sorry I can’t be there in person, but I want to congratulate NIST on launching the AI Risk Management Framework.

This Framework was one of the central pillars of the National AI Initiative Act - a bipartisan Science Committee bill that we passed in 2020. Our goal was to ensure that the United States leads the world in the development of trustworthy AI systems.

That’s important not only for our economy and our global competitiveness, but also for setting the rules of the road in how AI is developed, adopted, and used. 

AI technologies are transformative tools, but they present complex challenges for fairness and trustworthiness. So it’s important that as we advance AI, we do so in a way that’s rooted in our democratic values -- with an emphasis on transparency, privacy, and reliability. NIST’s Risk Management Framework will help us do just that. 

This guidance was created with extensive input from government, universities, and industry. NIST’s transparent, bottom-up approach ensures these voluntary practices are useful to the broad community of AI stakeholders. And I believe that this open, collaborative process is what sets us apart when it comes to developing standards and best practices like this Framework.

By having standards and evaluation methods in place, this Framework is going to prove critical to our work to stay at the cutting edge of reliable and trustworthy AI technologies.   

I’m looking forward to seeing how organizations begin to adopt this voluntary guidance. As this is implemented it will not only better mitigate the risks associated with AI technologies, but also bolster U.S. competitiveness in AI.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this process over the past few years. And congratulations again to NIST for this achievement – thank you for continuing to be industry’s laboratory.