Review – HR 3919 Introduced – Securing AI

Back in June, Rep LaHood (R,IL) introduced HR 3919, the Advanced AI Security Readiness Act. The bill would require the National Security Agency (NSA) to develop strategies to defend covered AI technologies from technology theft by threat actors. No new funding is authorized by this bill.

Moving Forward

LaHood and two of his three cosponsors {Rep Gottheimer (D, NJ) and Rep Krishnamoorthi (D, IL)} are members of the House Intelligence Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I suspect that there will be some level of bipartisan support for the bill in Committee. The specific lack of regulatory authority and no spending authorization removes much of what could cause concern from Republicans. Still, I am not sure that there would be sufficient bipartisan support to allow the bill to be considered in the full House under the suspension of the rules process.

Commentary

With AI, or more accurately machine learning applications, starting to be used in process control systems, security of those systems will become increasingly important. In this session’s political environment, it is clear that any attempts to regulate that security, but the development of this Playbook should be a good starting point for developing AI cybersecurity requirements in a future, less regulatorily constrained, Congress.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill, as well as my suggestion on information sharing, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-3919-introduced-securing-ai - subscription required.