US agency calls for audits of AI systems to ensure accountability

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Wednesday issued a report calling for establishing a system of audits for artificial intelligence systems that would ensure transparency as well as hold tech companies accountable for potential risks and harms.

The Artificial Intelligence Accountability Policy Report stemmed from more than 1,400 comments the agency, which is part of the Commerce Department, received last year from companies and advocacy groups about creating an accountability system for artificial intelligence technologies.

“The report calls for improved transparency into AI systems, independent evaluations of those systems, and consequences for imposing new risks,” Alan Davidson, NTIA’s administrator and assistant secretary of Commerce, told reporters Tuesday.

“The government ought to require independent audits of the highest risk AI systems, those that, for example, directly impact physical safety or health” of users, Davidson said.

—CQ-Roll Call

Gov. Abbott issues executive order fighting antisemitism at Texas colleges

DALLAS — Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Wednesday aimed at fighting what his office called an increase in antisemitism at Texas’ colleges and universities.

“Some radical organizations on our campuses engaged in acts that have no place in Texas,” Abbott said in a press release. “Now, we must work to ensure that our college campuses are safe spaces for members of the Jewish community.”

The order requires all public colleges and universities in the state to review their free speech policies to lay out punishments for antisemitic rhetoric on campuses; to ensure administrators enforce those policies; and to include the definition of antisemitism.

In the executive order, Abbott noted that protected free speech areas on Texas university campuses, including the buildings and parking lots of Jewish student organizations, have been covered in antisemitic graffiti.

—The Dallas Morning News

Hartford, Conn., set to raise Christian flag at center of Supreme Court controversy

HARTFORD, Conn. — Hartford is set to raise the Christian flag over city hall after a contentious debate over what flags should be flown on city property.

The resolution, introduced by council Democrats, calls for the historical white and blue flag with a red Latin cross to be flown on Thursday in observance of Holy Week before Easter Sunday. The flag, designed over a century ago, represents all Christian denominations.

The flag raising comes after Hartford and numerous towns across the state have passed policies restricting what flags can be flown on municipal flagpoles. Strict flag policies, now commonplace across Connecticut, have sparked controversy in several towns over what flags should or should not be flown on municipal property.

Several towns have outright banned the Pride flag and the POW/MIA flag while allowing only official government flags to be flown. Proponents of flag policies have said they are necessary to avoid lawsuits.

—Hartford Courant

Yellen warns China's industry ramp-up is distorting world economy

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen slammed China’s use of subsidies to give its manufacturers in key new industries a competitive advantage, at the cost of distorting the global economy, and said she plans to press China on the issue in an upcoming visit.

“There is no country in the world that subsidizes its preferred, or priority, industries as heavily as China does,” Yellen said in an interview with MSNBC Wednesday — highlighting “massive” aid to electric-car, battery and solar producers. “China’s desire is to really have global domination of these industries.”

The Treasury chief was speaking from Norcross, Georgia, where she’s showcasing the reopening of a U.S. solar-cell manufacturing facility that had shut in 2017 under the pressure of “cheap imports flooding the market.”

Speaking to reporters after the event, Yellen declined to say whether the Biden administration was prepared to threaten Beijing with retaliatory trade actions if China doesn’t reduce its subsidies.

—Bloomberg News