On September 11th, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee passed nine pieces of legislation covering a diverse set of topics around artificial intelligence (AI). The bills are now sent to the full House of Representatives for consideration and potentially passage into law.

The nine bills are:

H.R. 5077, the CREATE AI Act

This is perhaps the piece of legislation of most importance to the computing research community, as it would establish the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), provide a governing structure for the resource, and authorize it to receive funding. If you’re a regular reader of the Policy Blog, you’ll recognize this bill from previous posts on AI legislation and it was originally introduced in 2023.

NAIRR, a cyberinfrastructure resources proposed by a Congressionally established task force of the same name, was started up as a pilot program by NSF at the beginning of 2024. The goal of NAIRR, which will be run by NSF and overseen by an interagency steering committee, is to provide, “free or low-cost access to datasets and computing resources for development of AI workflows,” helping to democratize the development and use of artificial intelligence. The bill version would authorize NAIRR to receive $430 million a year for five years (FY2025 to FY2030).

Of all the bills the Science Committee moved on the 11th, this is the most likely to become law. That is because there is a Senate version that was passed by the Senate Commerce Committee over the summer and it enjoys wide, bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress. However, expectations on that happening should be kept in check, as there are few legislative working days left in the year and Congress does not have many legislative vehicles to move this to passage. If it were to move, it would likely do so as an amendment in the annual defense policy bill. There are also rumors of an AI supplemental funding bill during the lame duck session of Congress; however, this author would caution that until we know the outcome of the November elections, such an effort is unlikely.

H.R. 9402, the NSF AI Education Act of 2024

This bill support NSF’s education and professional develop mission related to AI. First, it allows NSF to support scholarships and fellowships in AI, and specifically includes community colleges for support. It also directs NSF to support professional development for students, teachers, faculty, and industry professionals. This includes supplements to students and faculty to attain skills, training, or education in AI, as well as fellowships for industry and school professionals.

Next, this legislation establishes a “Centers of AI Excellence” program at NSF. The agency is directed to run the program in coordination with NIST’s Regional Technology Hubs, while also leveraging the NSF Engines program and other NSF efforts it deems necessary and useful. The establishment of such a center is to, “enhance educational outcomes and drive workforce development by integrating artificial intelligence into teaching, learning, and community engagement.” The bill’s language specifically includes community colleges and “area center and technical educational schools” to the list of groups who can take part in the Center program.

The legislation also directs NSF to make awards to promote research regarding teaching models, and materials for AI and its integration into classrooms, teaching, and learning for Pre-K through grade 12 students who are from low-income, rural, or Tribal populations. Finally, the legislation incorporates AI skills development into the National STEM Teacher Corp.

H.R. 9211, the LIFT AI Act

The Lift AI Act would allow NSF to make awards to institutions of higher education or nonprofit organizations to support research activities to develop educational curricula and evaluation methods for AI literacy at the K-12 level. It also allows NSF to carry out these activities through new or existing funding; it does not provide additional funding authorizations.

There is also a sense of Congress clause that talks about the importance of AI literacy in K-12 for the nation’s future workforce and how it underpins the country’s economic and national security. Such clauses don’t have much legal strength, but they provide a useful rhetorical point for the research agencies to say “Congress deems this subject important and that’s why we’re funding these activities.”

H.R. 9403, the Expanding AI Voices Act

This bill directs NSF to broaden participation and capacity in AI research, education, and workforce development. It does this by competitive awards to institutions that are not one of the top 100 institutions (as determined by Federal R&D expenditures during the 3-year period prior to the year of the award), HBCUs, MSIs, tribal colleges or universities, or a consortia of any of the these entities.

An eligible institution may use the funds to carry out:

• Development or expansion of research programs in AI and related disciplines.
• Faculty recruitment and professional development in AI.
• Bridge programs focus on preparing post-baccalaureate students for grad programs in AI.
• Provide or broker access to research resources, including computer resources, networking, data facilities, and software engineering support for AI R&D.
• Community building activities to foster mutually beneficial public-private collaboration with Federal research agencies, industry, Federal laboratories, academia, and nonprofit organizations.
• Development and hosting of intra- or inter-institutional workshops to broaden workforce participation in AI.
• Activities to integrate ethical and responsible practices and principles into education programs in AI
• Other activities necessary to build research capacity, education pathways, and workforce development pathways in AI.

NSF is then directed, when performing outreach to the community about this program, to take into account all regions of the country, and to especially consider people from underserved communities and groups historically underrepresented in STEM. No additional funding authorization is provided.

H.R. 9215, the Workforce for AI Trust Act

This bill is meant to, “facilitate a workforce of trained experts to build trustworthy AI systems.” The legislative language is split between sections for NSF and NIST.

For NSF, it allows the agency to support graduate and postdoc research fellowships across disciplines. The language includes humanities and social sciences for fields that should be included. The fellowships are meant for the, “integration of ethical and responsible practices and principles into the design, development, training, deployment, evaluation, and understanding of artificial intelligence systems.” The bill also directs NSF to make awards for the development and hosting of intra and inter-institutional workshops on integrating perspectives and skills from multiple disciplines toward the deployment, evaluation, and understanding of AI systems. Finally, it directs NSF to integrate these perspectives into the agency’s peer review process.

For the NIST section of the bill, it amends NIST’s AI mission to have the agency support education and workforce development activities to expand the AI workforce. This includes careers related to helping organizations govern, map, measure, and manage AI related risks, including testing, evaluation, verification, and validation of AI systems.

H.R. 9466, the AI Development Practices Act

This bill directs NIST to “catalog and evaluate emerging practices and norms for communicating certain characteristics of artificial intelligence systems, including relating to transparency, robustness, resilience, security, safety, and usability, and for other purposes.” This is perhaps the most esoteric bill that the committee considered, but it covers an essential function of the federal agency whose mission is to assemble standards for industry. The language makes clear that any guidance that NIST develops must remain voluntary.

H.R. 9497, the AI Advancement and Reliability Act

This bill establishes a “Center for AI Advancement and Reliability” at NIST in order to ensure US leadership in, “research, development, and evaluation of the reliability, robustness, resilience, security, and safety of artificial intelligence systems.” The center is to coordinate with NSF, OSTP, DOE, DOD, DHS, and other departmental secretaries or agencies as considers appropriate. The bill also directs NIST to establish a consortium of stakeholders from academic, industry and civil society. The center is authorized to receive $10 million for Fiscal Year 2025.

H.R. 9197, the Small Business Artificial Intelligence Advancement Act

This is a small business assistance bill that directs NIST to provide guidance to help such entities utilize advances in the AI marketplace.

H.R. 9194, the Nucleic Acid Screening for Biosecurity Act

Finally, the shortest bill the Science Committee considered, it’s a biology sciences bill that touches on the potential impact AI could have on nucleic acid screening sciences.