As November 5th creeps closer, it seems American voters are being promised another nail-biter, with several swing states polling within the margin of error for the presidential race.
While there are numerous important races at play at all levels of government come Election Day, the race for the White House, as well as for control of the House and Senate, are the ones likely to determine the next several years of national AI policy. Although AI hasn’t quite proven to be a culture war issue, that doesn’t mean the partisan cracks won’t start showing soon.
It’s not as if there hasn’t been any legislation and regulation around AI; however, compared to the EU and some other countries around the world, it’s been a pretty light touch. Sixteen states have passed legislation covering the use of AI in political advertising; in 2023, the White House issued an executive order directing federal agencies to develop new standards for AI safety and security (among other things), and California recently passed an AI transparency bill—so there’s been movement.
But compared to such comprehensive legislation like the EU’s AI Act, it would seem the American approach is shaping up to be much more iterative and likely much more sectoral, both at the federal and state levels.
While the wait for the dust to settle might extend well beyond November 5th, it’s worth taking a look at some developing AI policy issues that will matter to advertising.
Copyright
The U.S. Copyright Office announced an initiative in 2023 to begin examining the issues AI presented to current copyright law and is rolling out findings in a series of reports, the first of which was issued in July on Digital Replicas.
Why it matters: The use of AI presents many new challenges for advertisers and agencies when it comes to copyright, perhaps none so pressing as the issue that U.S. copyright law currently does not allow copyrights to be issued to nonhuman-generated works. These series of reports are expected to lay the groundwork for federal legislation on the intersection of AI and copyright.