AI Incident Reporting Act

Full Title:
AI Incident Reporting Act

Summary#

This bill requires certain artificial intelligence (AI) model developers to report serious incidents and risky model behaviors to the Secretary of Commerce. The Secretary must, within 180 days, set rules and thresholds to designate which models and developers are "covered" and must issue guidelines on how to report. Covered developers must file an initial report within 7 days after they know or reasonably believe a reportable activity occurred. The bill lists types of reportable activity, including attempts by a model to evade human control, theft or exfiltration of model weights, capabilities that could enable offensive cyber attacks, features that speed up development of more advanced AI, and capabilities that could enable weapons development. Developers must submit details about the incident, timing, causes, and national security or public safety implications, and they must provide supplemental reports as new material information becomes available. For reports that present imminent or ongoing serious harm, the Secretary must notify specified congressional leaders and committee chairs within 48 hours; for other reports, notification must occur within 30 days.

What it means for you#

  • If you develop or substantially modify AI models that meet the Secretary's thresholds, you must report certain serious incidents within 7 days and provide follow-up information as it becomes available.
  • The Department of Commerce will define which models and developers are covered, and will issue rules and reporting processes.
  • Reported information is protected from public disclosure and from use in most civil or criminal actions against the reporting developer, and the bill says such disclosure is not a waiver of privileges like trade secrets or attorney-client protections.
  • The Secretary can share submitted information with other federal agencies, including intelligence and law enforcement, subject to the same protections.

Expenses#

No publicly available information on projected costs to the federal government or to private entities appears in the bill text. The bill does authorize civil penalties for violations of up to $2,000,000, with each day of a continuing violation treated as a separate offense.

Proponents' View#

No publicly available information.

Opponents' View#

No publicly available information.