[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1250 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1250

 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to 
 the principles that should guide the national artificial intelligence 
                     strategy of the United States.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            December 4, 2020

 Mr. Hurd of Texas (for himself, Ms. Kelly of Illinois, Ms. Stefanik, 
  Mr. Veasey, Mr. Cloud, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Lucas, Mr. Beyer, and Mr. 
Fitzpatrick) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and in addition to the 
   Committees on Education and Labor, Oversight and Reform, Foreign 
 Affairs, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means, for a period to be 
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration 
  of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
                               concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to 
 the principles that should guide the national artificial intelligence 
                     strategy of the United States.

    Resolved,

SECTION 1. GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF THE NATIONAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 
              STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES.

    (a) Findings.--The House of Representatives finds the following:
            (1) In general, artificial intelligence is the ability of a 
        computer system to solve problems and to perform tasks that 
        would otherwise require human intelligence.
            (2) Artificial intelligence will transform the nature of 
        work and nearly all aspects of the United States economy.
            (3) Artificial intelligence will have immense implications 
        for the security of the United States and its allies and 
        partners.
            (4) Investments made by the United States Government will 
        be instrumental in the research and development of artificial 
        intelligence and artificial intelligence-enabling technologies, 
        as it has been for many of the world's revolutionary 
        technologies.
            (5) Developing and using artificial intelligence in ways 
        that are ethical, reduce bias, promote fairness, and protect 
        privacy is essential for fostering a positive effect on society 
        consistent with core United States values.
            (6) The Obama Administration released the Big Data Research 
        and Development Initiative in 2012, Executive Order 13702 
        (relating to creating a national strategic computing 
        initiative) in 2015, and the National Artificial Intelligence 
        Research and Development Strategic Plan in 2016.
            (7) The Trump Administration released Executive Order 13859 
        (relating to maintaining American leadership in artificial 
        intelligence), updated the National Artificial Intelligence 
        Research and Development Strategic Plan in 2019, and released 
        Office of Management and Budget guidance for regulation of 
        artificial intelligence applications in 2020.
            (8) In May 2019, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation 
        and Development (OECD) adopted the OECD Principles on 
        Artificial Intelligence, which included the principles of 
        inclusive growth, sustainable development and well-being, 
        human-centered values and fairness, transparency and 
        explainability, robustness, security and safety, and 
        accountability.
            (9) In February 2020, the European Commission began a 
        consultation process with the release of their white paper ``On 
        Artificial Intelligence--A European approach to excellence and 
        trust'', which set out policy options for a coordinated 
        European approach to artificial intelligence regulation.
            (10) In June 2020, the G7 and several partners launched the 
        Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to increase 
        cooperation focused around the areas of responsible artificial 
        intelligence, data governance, the future of work, and 
        innovation and commercialization.
            (11) Several United States allies, including Canada, 
        Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, 
        and South Korea, have published national artificial 
        intelligence strategies with detailed funding commitments.
            (12) In 2017, China published a national artificial 
        intelligence strategy that detailed the Chinese Communist 
        Party's goal to become the world's primary artificial 
        intelligence innovation center by 2030.
            (13) In 2019, Russia published a national artificial 
        intelligence strategy and, in 2017, Russian President Vladimir 
        Putin said that ``whoever becomes the leader in this sphere 
        will become the ruler of the world''.
            (14) In 2018, the Subcommittee on Information Technology of 
        the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the House 
        of Representatives, under the leadership of Chairman Will Hurd 
        and Ranking Member Robin Kelly, published ``Rise of the 
        Machines: Artificial Intelligence and its Growing Impact on 
        U.S. Policy'' following a series of hearings on artificial 
        intelligence with experts from academia, industry, and 
        government, concluding that ``the United States cannot maintain 
        its global leadership in artificial intelligence absent 
        political leadership from Congress and the Executive Branch''.
            (15) Congress serves a critical role in establishing 
        national priorities, funding scientific research and 
        development, supporting emerging technologies, and sustaining 
        cooperation with our allies to protect the national security of 
        the United States.
    (b) National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Principles.--It is 
the sense of the House of Representatives that the following principles 
should guide the national artificial intelligence strategy of the 
United States:
            (1) Global leadership.
            (2) A prepared workforce.
            (3) National security.
            (4) Effective research and development.
            (5) Ethics, reduced bias, fairness, and privacy.

SEC. 2. GLOBAL LEADERSHIP.

    It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the United 
States should take a global leadership role in artificial intelligence.

SEC. 3. WORKFORCE PREPARATION.

    (a) Findings.--The House of Representatives finds the following:
            (1) Artificial intelligence and automation will present 
        significant challenges to workers in affected industries due to 
        the automating of some routine and repetitive tasks, but will 
        also create additional employment opportunities.
            (2) Closing the artificial intelligence talent gap in the 
        short- and medium-term will require a targeted approach to 
        identifying and filling roles that require the skills to build 
        and work with artificial intelligence systems.
            (3) The United States should take a leadership role in the 
        artificial intelligence-driven economy by filling the 
        artificial intelligence talent gap and preparing United States 
        workers for the jobs of the future, including by prioritizing 
        inclusivity and equal opportunity.
            (4) Departments and agencies of the Federal Government are 
        increasingly using data to administer benefits, assess 
        outcomes, and fulfill other mission-critical activities.
            (5) Effectively creating, managing, and implementing 
        artificial intelligence-related research and development grants 
        will require technical expertise.
            (6) Departments and agencies of the Federal Government will 
        need to be able to recruit employees with technical expertise.
            (7) Lifelong learning and skill acquisition can increase 
        flexibility with respect to career opportunities.
            (8) The United States will need to be able to attract the 
        best artificial intelligence researchers and computer 
        scientists from around the world to work in the United States.
    (b) Matters To Consider.--
            (1) Education.--It is the sense of the House of 
        Representatives that the national competitiveness of the United 
        States in artificial intelligence would benefit from--
                    (A) increased funding for Federal programs that 
                support science, technology, engineering, mathematics, 
                and computer science education;
                    (B) grant programs that continue funding the 
                integration of ethics courses and modules into science, 
                engineering, and computer science curricula;
                    (C) new education programs of study related to 
                artificial intelligence that incorporate industry-
                recognized credentials, including certifications and 
                certificates, embedded within secondary and 
                postsecondary degree programs; and
                    (D) continued support for teacher preparation 
                programs that increase the number of teachers with the 
                ability to teach science, technology, engineering, 
                mathematics, and computer science education.
            (2) Promoting diversity.--It is the sense of the House of 
        Representatives that--
                    (A) the inclusion of students from historically 
                under-represented groups in existing technology 
                education programs would benefit a diverse artificial 
                intelligence workforce; and
                    (B) recruitment and retention policies with respect 
                to under-represented communities and marginalized 
                groups in the Federal workforce should be reviewed for 
                the purpose of determining if such policies require 
                modification for technology workers.
            (3) Artificial intelligence training.--
                    (A) In general.--It is the sense of the House of 
                Representatives that the Federal Government should 
                assess the effectiveness of current public workforce 
                development programs with respect to the additional 
                support such programs will need to effectively address 
                job disruptions and job creations that result from the 
                increased use of artificial intelligence.
                    (B) Work-based learning and on-the-job training 
                programs.--It is the sense of the House of 
                Representatives that the Federal Government should 
                support the adoption of work-based learning and on-the-
                job training programs to prepare the United States 
                workforce for an artificial intelligence-influenced 
                economy, including by--
                            (i) undertaking studies to determine best 
                        practices to implement such programs; and
                            (ii) ensuring that there is sufficient 
                        Federal funding to support high-quality 
                        programs that coordinate with Federal workforce 
                        development programs.
            (4) Federal hiring practices.--It is the sense of the House 
        of Representatives that the Federal Government should--
                    (A) allow technical experts to use their skills to 
                assist multiple departments and agencies of the Federal 
                Government, such as the United States Digital Service;
                    (B) focus on the retention of non-partisan experts 
                within the Federal Government who are working to 
                modernize Federal information technology;
                    (C) include in the criteria for recruiting for 
                artificial intelligence jobs the consideration of a 
                multi-disciplinary set of skills, including an 
                understanding of ethical practices with respect to the 
                design and use of artificial intelligence systems, 
                privacy, information security, law, and civil 
                liberties;
                    (D) review hiring practices for employment in the 
                Federal Government for the purpose of ensuring that 
                such practices do not disqualify individuals with a 
                less traditional background, including due to a lack of 
                undergraduate or graduate degree attainment, who have 
                skills that will benefit work in artificial 
                intelligence systems management and research and 
                development; and
                    (E) conduct studies with respect to best practices 
                for skills-based hiring.

SEC. 4. NATIONAL SECURITY.

    (a) Findings.--The House of Representatives finds the following:
            (1) Artificial intelligence will have immense implications 
        for national and international security.
            (2) Artificial intelligence tools and systems can augment 
        human intelligence through human-machine collaboration and 
        teaming across the national security ecosystem.
            (3) Ensuring that the public trusts the ability of the 
        military to ethically use artificial intelligence and that 
        human operators in human-machine teams trust the artificial 
        intelligence will be critical factors with respect to the 
        successful implementation of artificial intelligence systems.
            (4) The continued proliferation of national artificial 
        intelligence strategies, plans, statements, and investments 
        demonstrates the increase in global competition in this area.
            (5) New paradigms will be required to effectively test 
        artificial intelligence and to ensure that it is reliable and 
        stable.
            (6) Export and investment controls will be important policy 
        tools to prevent the acquisition of sensitive artificial 
        intelligence and artificial intelligence-enabling technologies, 
        including hardware such as semiconductors and semiconductor 
        manufacturing equipment, by China, Russia, and other 
        adversaries.
    (b) Matters To Consider.--
            (1) Collaboration with foreign nations.--It is the sense of 
        the House of Representatives that the United States should--
                    (A) leverage its alliances to promote democratic 
                principles, foster research collaboration, and develop 
                common standards with respect to artificial 
                intelligence;
                    (B) promote the interoperability of artificial 
                intelligence for the purpose of strengthening 
                alliances;
                    (C) along with allies, take a leading role in 
                international forums to set artificial intelligence 
                principles, norms, and standards; and
                    (D) undertake efforts to engage with China and 
                Russia with respect to--
                            (i) shared concerns about artificial 
                        intelligence safety; and
                            (ii) confidence-building by establishing 
                        crisis communications procedures designed to 
                        reduce the likelihood of unintentional use and 
                        the risk of escalation with respect to 
                        artificial intelligence systems.
            (2) Foreign artificial intelligence capability.--It is the 
        sense of the House of Representatives that national security 
        agencies should consider conditions-based and capabilities-
        based approaches when evaluating global artificial intelligence 
        capabilities.
            (3) Development and deployment.--It is the sense of the 
        House of Representatives that national security agencies 
        should--
                    (A) collaborate with experts in academia, the 
                private sector, and other departments and agencies of 
                the Federal Government to develop best practices for 
                testing, evaluation, validation, and verification of 
                artificial intelligence systems;
                    (B) devote agency resources, including investing in 
                research, for the purpose of promoting trustworthiness 
                with respect to human-machine teams;
                    (C) engage with experts to develop guidelines for 
                the ethical development and use of artificial 
                intelligence systems; and
                    (D) prioritize the development of artificial 
                intelligence systems to cover non-critical tasks until 
                such systems can achieve suitable standards of 
                reliability, interoperability, and security.
            (4) Export and investment controls.--It is the sense of the 
        House of Representatives that the United States should 
        collaborate with its allies to prevent the misuse of artificial 
        intelligence systems by China, Russia, and other adversaries.

SEC. 5. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT.

    (a) Findings.--The House of Representatives finds the following:
            (1) Federal funding plays an important role in research and 
        development.
            (2) Federal research and development investments need to be 
        significantly increased to ensure United States leadership in 
        artificial intelligence.
            (3) Federally supported research will play an important 
        role in supporting artificial intelligence techniques that are 
        critical to United States artificial intelligence leadership, 
        including by exploring novel techniques that leverage smaller 
        data sets to train artificial intelligence systems and making 
        more efficient use of computing resources.
            (4) Artificial intelligence advances are enabled by Federal 
        research and development investments in other technology 
        sectors because United States economic competitiveness and 
        national security will depend on strong capabilities across a 
        range of technologies.
            (5) Computing power is essential to progress in artificial 
        intelligence development, and the amount of computing power 
        required for artificial intelligence training runs is 
        increasing exponentially.
            (6) A new wave of technological advances could be fostered 
        by combining and increasing access to government-owned and 
        government-funded computing and data resources.
            (7) Expanding access to digital infrastructure, such as 
        broadband, will be essential to creating new job opportunities 
        and stimulating the growth of new technology and innovation 
        clusters to support United States leadership in artificial 
        intelligence.
            (8) Incentivizing research and development across the 
        private sector, particularly from smaller companies, will 
        further strengthen the United States innovation ecosystem.
            (9) The United States is an attractive research and 
        development partner because it is home to world-class 
        universities, research institutes, and corporations.
            (10) Decades of experience show that joint work with 
        foreign researchers can be done with great benefit and little 
        detriment to United States economic and national security with 
        the implementation of proper safeguards.
            (11) Artificial intelligence standards and measurement are 
        essential to fostering artificial intelligence technologies 
        that are safe, secure, reliable, and comport with the norms and 
        values of the United States.
            (12) Metrics are how the artificial intelligence research 
        community guides itself and prioritizes research.
            (13) Benchmark tests are necessary to understand the 
        performance of an artificial intelligence system.
            (14) Current tests for measuring artificial intelligence 
        range from vague and conceptual to well-defined and mature.
            (15) Artificial intelligence measurement methodologies are 
        not static and will require periodic reexaminations and updates 
        of testing methodologies to ensure that artificial intelligence 
        systems are functioning according to best-known practices.
            (16) United States leadership in global artificial 
        intelligence standards-setting will help ensure that artificial 
        intelligence implementations are in accordance with United 
        States strengths and comport with the interests and values of 
        the United States.
            (17) Public engagement is necessary for developing 
        voluntary consensus standards, guidelines, and frameworks to 
        ensure diverse perspectives are considered.
    (b) Matters To Consider.--
            (1) Federal funding.--It is the sense of the House of 
        Representatives that the Federal Government should increase 
        investments in artificial intelligence research and development 
        and related fields.
            (2) Collaboration with other entities.--It is the sense of 
        the House of Representatives that departments and agencies of 
        the Federal Government should collaborate--
                    (A) with the private sector, civil society, and 
                academia--
                            (i) to ensure that the United States 
                        innovation ecosystem leads the world in 
                        artificial intelligence research and 
                        development; and
                            (ii) to develop voluntary consensus 
                        standards, guidelines, and frameworks that will 
                        help create shared conceptual foundations, 
                        terminology, and best practices for artificial 
                        intelligence fairness and bias mitigation; and
                    (B) with science funding organizations in like-
                minded countries to establish multilateral teams of 
                artificial intelligence researchers from the public and 
                private sectors to promote additional talent 
                development and foster partnerships on artificial 
                intelligence research and development.
            (3) Expanding digital access.--It is the sense of the House 
        of Representatives that the Federal Government should--
                    (A) expand access to broadband in rural and 
                underserved areas;
                    (B) expand the availability of affordable graphics 
                processing units and high-performance computers in 
                rural and underserved areas;
                    (C) improve digital infrastructure in the United 
                States; and
                    (D) make data created by federally funded 
                scientific and technical research publicly available 
                with appropriate privacy protections to provide 
                artificial intelligence researchers with new data sets 
                to train their systems.
            (4) National computing and data resource.--It is the sense 
        of the House of Representatives that Congress should consider 
        establishing a national computing and data resource.
            (5) Access to national laboratories.--It is the sense of 
        the House of Representatives that the existing supercomputing 
        labs at the national laboratories and technology centers of the 
        Department of Energy should expand opportunities for academics 
        and researchers to access such labs for artificial intelligence 
        research and research related to artificial intelligence.
            (6) Tax incentives.--It is the sense of the House of 
        Representatives that Congress should examine whether targeted 
        incentives and reforms to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 
        would increase private sector research and development, 
        particularly with respect to small cap corporations.

SEC. 6. ETHICS, REDUCED BIAS, FAIRNESS, AND PRIVACY.

    (a) Findings.--The House of Representatives finds the following:
            (1) The rise of artificial intelligence has great potential 
        to improve quality of life for individuals in the United 
        States, provided it is developed and used in a manner that is 
        ethical, reduces bias, promotes fairness, and protects privacy.
            (2) A diverse artificial intelligence workforce is 
        important for mitigating bias.
            (3) The United States is uniquely positioned to leverage 
        its diverse workforce to lead in artificial intelligence.
            (4) The starting point for Federal oversight of artificial 
        intelligence should be to review existing regulatory 
        frameworks.
            (5) Regulatory sandboxes, in general, refer to regulatory 
        structures where a participant obtains limited or temporary 
        access to a market in exchange for reduced regulatory 
        uncertainty, and can be used to test a product designed to 
        mitigate unintended bias or promote fairness in a small-scale 
        environment and under the supervision of regulators.
            (6) Federal programs should have necessary safeguards and 
        oversight processes.
            (7) Artificial intelligence regulatory approaches should 
        consider the level of risk associated with different artificial 
        intelligence applications.
    (b) Matters To Consider.--
            (1) Bias mitigation.--It is the sense of the House of 
        Representatives that departments and agencies of the Federal 
        Government should--
                    (A) support technical and non-technical research 
                and development to address potential bias, fairness, 
                and privacy issues in artificial intelligence;
                    (B) improve access to a broad range of non-
                sensitive government data assets to help train 
                artificial intelligence systems;
                    (C) implement title II of the Foundations for 
                Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Public Law 
                115-435; 132 Stat. 5529);
                    (D) develop policies to identify the data used to 
                train artificial intelligence algorithms as well as 
                data analyzed by artificial intelligence algorithms and 
                systems in use by departments and agencies; and
                    (E) further develop and release to the public 
                available benchmark data assets with the proper 
                safeguards to protect privacy, mitigate bias, and 
                promote inclusivity.
            (2) Regulation and legislation review.--It is the sense of 
        the House of Representatives that congressional committees 
        should--
                    (A) review the range of existing Federal 
                regulations and laws that potentially apply to 
                artificial intelligence;
                    (B) determine which laws apply to artificial 
                intelligence;
                    (C) determine if any gaps in appropriate 
                legislation and regulation exist and how such gaps 
                could be addressed;
                    (D) advance Federal privacy reforms that build 
                trust, prevent harm, and maintain United States global 
                leadership in artificial intelligence; and
                    (E) conduct regular oversight of artificial 
                intelligence policies in the executive branch within 
                their jurisdiction.
            (3) Federal funding.--It is the sense of the House of 
        Representatives that Congress should support funding for 
        departments and agencies of the Federal Government interested 
        in adopting programs, including regulatory sandboxes, for the 
        purposes of testing artificial intelligence tools in limited 
        markets.
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