Are they REALLY taking AI seriously? Biden's flagship artificial intelligence ... trends now
With only a modest $10 million budget to help regulate an industry of billionaires, Biden's new AI safety lab is now struggling with just the safety of its own facilities.
'Chronic underfunding' of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal lab that will house the new US AI Safety Institute, has produced black mold, leaky ceilings, and a dead technician crushed by a concrete slab, reports say.
Despite calls from scientists and entrepreneurs who have described 'the risk of extinction from AI' as on par with 'pandemics and nuclear war,' GOP deficit hawks in Congress pushed for a 10-percent budget cut to NIST — and Biden approved.
One former senior NIST official reported seeing 'Home Depot dehumidifiers or portable AC units all over the place' bought by staff to help dry and slow the mold.
Another reported indoor incessant leaks during rainy weather that required staff to 'tarp up' critical electronic equipment.
Pests and wildlife, including snakes, have infiltrated NIST campuses too, further compromising the lab's ability to conduct accurate experiments essential for their work in developing official regulatory standards.
With only a modest $10 million budget to help regulate an industry of billionaires, Biden's new AI safety lab is now struggling with just the safety of its own facilities - black mold, leaky ceilings, and a dead technician crushed by a concrete slab, according to internal reports
'You see dust everywhere because the windows don't seal,' NIST's former acting director Kent Rochford told the Washington Post.
'You see a bucket catching drips from a leak in the roof.'
Rochford — one of over a dozen current and former NIST employees, administration officials, and AI experts who spoke to the Post for their investigation — said he once requested funds for scuba gear to deal with damage from flooding at a NIST facility.
The funding was denied, he said, but NIST was given squeegees to clean up water.
Nearly two thirds (over 60 percent) of NIST's buildings do not meet federal standards for safety, according to a report commissioned by Congress last year and conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Based on the academy's calculations, they said, 'the poor and worsening physical condition and functionality of NIST's facilities' sucked up 40 percent of work productivity as staff pivoted to 'workarounds and do-it-yourself repairs.'
NIST's chief AI adviser Elham Tabassi has complained that President Biden's executive order this November, which mandated the creation of NIST's AI institute, created an 'almost impossible deadline'
