From Ethics to Operations: Current Federal AI Policy

There are currently dozens of separate AI ethics, policy, and technical working groups scattered in federal space, each of which is pursuing important goals of defining policies related to AI within their specific charters. There is concern that these evolving policies may be incomplete, inconsistent, or incompatible with each other.

This report intends to provide a general framework and an assessment of the current state of federal government AI policy. The framework is a structure of AI policy categories and the mapping of those policy categories to the federal government organizations that have developed related policies. By mapping the policy formulation activity of federal organizations to the ontology of policy categories, we provide insight into the current patterns of policy formulation. Our findings highlight areas of policy that may currently be under-addressed as well as areas to review for consistency. This insight informs a set of policy development recommendations that conclude this report.