AI promises to be the most important innovation of our time and it is already making our lives better. Today, AI is powering groundbreaking research, improving efficiency in workplaces, and strengthening our nation’s Department of Defense (DOD). Beyond the technology itself, AI presents trillions of dollars of potential economic output and is on track to create millions of job opportunities for Americans.
In response to the White House’s Request for Information on an AI Action Plan, Scale submitted recommendations to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). To ensure America maintains a leadership position on AI, the United States must take bold steps. Scale believes the path forward must include decisive action on these four main pillars – Protect, Promote, Unleash, and Innovate.
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Protect: When it comes to AI, it’s clear that the United States still has the world’s best technology companies, working on the world’s best technology which is being developed by the world’s best talent. These innovations have set the global standard for what best-in-class means and because of that, our adversaries are fully committed to gaining access to it. Scale recommends that prior to putting in place any new export controls, the Trump Administration does a comprehensive review of the USG’s existing controls to better understand where new ones are required. Additionally, the Administration should place new emphasis and focus on the enforcement of our existing export controls to better protect our best-in-class technology from ending up in the hands of adversaries.
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Promote: Effective tech diplomacy heavily relies on the access and adoption of U.S. technology by our allies. Over the past few years, the United States has simply not prioritized the promote aspect nearly as much as the protect aspect. But if our nation is to fulfill President Trump’s vision of United States technological dominance this must change. In the coming year, countries around the world may be forced to effectively choose between whether they want to use Western technology or Chinese technology. We have already seen examples of this choice and, in Scale’s experience, it’s clear that countries want to leverage the United States technology. However, when asking countries to make this choice, we believe, the United States must also provide those countries full access to U.S. technology to ensure effective alignment.
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Unleash: In order to dominate, the United States needs to unleash our technology to the world, and the first step happens right here at home. As China has correctly identified, the best way to leverage AI is to start using it. While that may seem obvious, and despite the uneven playing field, the United States Government has fallen behind China when it comes to government use of AI. If we want to win, we must not only buy into a vision, but also start to take clear and decisive actions on it.
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Innovate: Scale has long been proponents of the idea that the right regulatory framework is one that maximizes innovation, but still creates proper guardrails. For the United States to continue to be the most attractive place for leading tech companies to develop the next generation of cutting edge AI systems, it relies on ensuring the best environment for them to do so. Additionally,the U.S. private sector and government must start to look at how we can all support and build the workforce of the future in the United States. AI is still relatively new, and much like coding in the 1990s, acquiring the skills necessary to train, fine tune, and evaluate AI systems will be vital in the future. These skillsets did not exist a decade ago, but are already proving to be large drivers of economic activity.
In the coming months, Scale looks forward to working with Congress and the Trump Administration to put in place the policies that will not only fulfill President Trump’s mandate for U.S. AI dominance but cement that position for decades to come.