The AI Now Institute is a think tank dedicated to regulating the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) based on the “social, political, and ethical implications” of this technology. ¹ The Institute is a fiscally sponsored project of Aspiration, a left-of-center technology advocacy group and receives funding from numerous prominent left-of-center grantmaking foundations, including the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Foundations, and the Ford Foundation. ²

The Institute was co-founded by Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker and at based in New York University. ³

2023 Landscape Report

In April 2023, the AI Now Institute published “2023 Landscape” on the state of artificial intelligence and the organization’s regulatory proposals. ⁴

The report warned, “one of the most difficult challenges of our time [is] the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the tech industry—Big Tech in particular,” which the report identifies as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft, and sometimes Twitter/X and Uber. The report claimed that these tech companies are too reckless in the development of AI technologies which pose serious risks to modern society, including “exacerbating patterns of inequality in housing, credit, healthcare, and education to inhibiting workers’ ability to organize and incentivizing content production that is deleterious to young people’s mental and physical health.” ⁵

The report identifies four “strategic priorities” for regulating big technology firms: placing a burden on tech companies to “affirmatively demonstrate that they are not doing harm” with AI products, unifying regulations across policy areas, identifying when tech companies capture regulations and responding accordingly, and utilizing input from non-regulator or legislative advocacy movements (such as environmentalism). ⁶

The report advocates for some specific regulatory policies: restrict the ability of tech companies to gather data, enforce anti-competition laws on big tech companies, specifically regulate ChatGPT and other similar AI programs, place stronger regulatory methods than “audits” on AI, restrict the use of biometric security standards, restrict worker surveillance, and integrate AI regulations in international trade agreements. ⁷

Leadership

The AI Now Institute was co-founded by Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker. Crawford is an artificial intelligence scholar working at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the Microsoft Research Lab in New York City, and she established similar AI organizations at both facilities. Whittaker is the president of Signal, a messaging app, and worked at Google for over a decade. As of June 2024, Crawford is no longer actively affiliated with the AI Now Institute while Whittaker works as the chief advisor. ^{8 9 10}

Amba Kak joined the Institute in September 2019 as the director of global policy and programs and has worked as co-executive director since September 2022. Since July 2023, she has sat on the board of Signal. Previously, Kak worked for Mozilla for almost two and a half years as a policy advisor. ^{11 12}

Sarah Myers West has worked as co-executive director of the Institute since August 2018, and also works as a visiting research scientist at the Network Science Institute. ^{13 14}

Funding

The AI Now Institute does not take funding from corporate donors “whose practices and products our work is dedicated to examining.” ¹⁵

As of June 2024, the Institute receives funding from the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and Luminate (which was founded by Pierre Omidyar, who also founded the Omidyar Network). ¹⁶

Previously, the Institute has received funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Pivotal Ventures, Microsoft Research, DeepMind, the Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Minderoo Foundation. ¹⁷

Controversies

According to the right-of-center Daily Wire, the AI Now Institute is part of a larger movement by eBay founder and left-wing mega-donor Pierre Omidyar and his Omidyar Network to “reimagine capitalism” along more left-wing ideological lines. Daily Wire reported that organizations funded by Omidyar, including the Omidyar Network, the Open Markets Institute, the American Economic Liberties Project, and Democracy Fund, along with the AI Now Institute, used their influence to place personnel in the Biden administration’s regulatory bodies. ¹⁸

In November 2021, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) appointed three employees of the AI Now Institute to the FTC’s Office of Policy Planning: co-executive director Amba Kak, co-executive director Sarah Myers West, and chief advisor Meredith Whittaker. The three work on “an informal AI Strategy Group” to brainstorm policy recommendations and regulations on AI. ^{19 20} According to the Institute’s 2023 Landscape, the informal group eventually disbanded. ²¹

1. Johnson, Eric. “How will AI change your life? AI Now Institute founders Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker explain.” Vox. April 8, 2019. Accessed June 21, 2024. https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2019/4/8/18299736/artificial-intelligence-ai-meredith-whittaker-kate-crawford-kara-swisher-decode-podcast-interview.
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11. “Amber Kak.” LinkedIn. Accessed June 21, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/amba-kak-48569b108/.
12. “Amba Kak.” AI Now Institute. Accessed June 21, 2024. https://ainowinstitute.org/author/amba-kak.
13.  “Sarah Myers West.” LinkedIn. Accessed June 21, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmyerswest/.
14. “Sarah Myers West.” AI Now Institute. Accessed June 21, 2024. https://ainowinstitute.org/author/sarah-myers-west
15. “About Us.” AI Now Institute. Accessed June 20, 2024. https://ainowinstitute.org/about.
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18. Rosiak, Luke. “A Leftist Billionaire Vowed To ‘Reimagine Capitalism.’ Then He Colonized A Federal Agency.” Daily Wire. June 10, 2024. Accessed June 20, 2024. https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-leftist-billionaire-vowed-to-reimagine-capitalism-then-he-colonized-a-federal-agency.
19. “FTC Chair Lina M. Khan Announces New Appointments in Agency Leadership Positions.” FTC. November 19, 2021. Accessed June 20, 2024. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/11/ftc-chair-lina-m-khan-announces-new-appointments-agency-leadership-positions.
20. “People.” AI Now Institute. Accessed June 20, 2024. https://ainowinstitute.org/people.
21. “2023 Landscape Executive Summary.” AI Now Institute. April 11, 2023. Accessed June 20, 2024. https://ainowinstitute.org/general/2023-landscape-executive-summary.