An organisation established during the Biden administration to help promote artificial intelligence guidelines and standards has dropped the word “safety” from its name.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology's AI Safety Consortium is now called the Artificial Intelligence Consortium.
The NIST briefly addressed the name change on Friday, saying the move is meant “to reflect the group’s newly expanded goals”, which include AI innovation and adoption.
“The consortium will focus on AI innovation and adoption, with six task groups concentrating on different aspects of AI measurement science and evaluation,” it said.
It also indicated that “reorienting the consortium”, along with changing its name, was necessary to better execute President Donald Trump's AI action plan.
The Biden administration instructed the NIST to create the AI Safety Institute Consortium in 2023, to “support of the development and deployment of safe and trustworthy AI”.
The consortium was launched in 2024 with about 200 industry partners. As public concern rose over growing labour market disruption, intellectual property theft, proliferation of misinformation, and national security concerns, Mr Biden had announced an executive order in 2023 focused “on the safe, secure, and trustworthy development” of AI.
The 2024 Republican Party platform, however, vowed to take a completely different approach if elected to office.
“We will repeal Joe Biden's dangerous executive order that hinders AI innovation, and imposes radical left-wing ideas on the development of this technology,” it said. “In its place, Republicans support AI development rooted in free speech and human flourishing.”
Much of the Trump administration's approach to AI has been viewed as being a reaction to that Biden-era effort.
In last week's announcement from NIST about the name change, the agency said the AI consortium would “continue some of its previous work”. It also said that it was calling for new members to participate.
“NIST is seeking letters of interest from organisations that wish to join,” the news release said.
The NIST was established in 1901 and tasked with ensuring that proper technology, science and measurement standards are applied throughout the US. Through the use of atomic clocks, NIST was assigned to keep the official time across America and it has widely been credited with setting US data encryption, cellular and internet standards.
