Ensuring responsible procurement of AI

Government spending on artificial intelligence (AI) has reached unprecedented levels. In fiscal year 2022, the United States government awarded over $2 billion in contracts to private companies that provide services that rely on AI, and total spending on AI has increased nearly 2.5 times since 2017.

Meanwhile, federal policymakers’ attention to AI continues to grow, with multiple legislative and executive actions aimed at encouraging the federal government to adopt AI while accounting for issues of bias, privacy, transparency, and efficacy. The increase of government spending on AI, in addition to the growing acknowledgement of the potential and risks associated with such technology, has raised new and urgent questions about whether and how tenets of responsible AI use are addressed in federal government procurement policies and practices.

But these questions are not unique to the U.S. context, as governments across the globe grapple with the “AI Gold Rush.” In this presentation, experts from the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) will break down the U.S.’s recent legislative and regulatory developments on government AI procurement, give recommendations for best practices, and share our new research on how governments decide whether AI is even necessary to solve a problem in the first place.