NTIA

“One piece of encouraging news is that it’s clear to the experts that this is not a binary issue. There are gradients of openness,” said Alan Davidson, an assistant Commerce secretary and the NTIA’s administrator.

“Such a regime can — and should — include pre-deployment testing, ongoing audits, transparency measures, and other regulatory safeguards like those suggested by the NTIA, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and others,” Mr. Durbin said in a letter Monday to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

NTIA, the FTC and other government agencies have weighed the risks of AI for years.

The NTIA, more of an adviser than a regulator, is seeking feedback about what policies could make commercial AI tools more accountable.

The NTIA’s notice leans heavily on requesting comment about “self-regulatory” measures that the companies that build the technology would be likely to lead.