We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Vice President Kamala Harris attends the opening of a pop-up ice cream shop "Smize & Dream" owned by Tyra Banks, in Washington, US, on July 19, 2024.
November’s election is so close and yet so far
For the US election apparatus, it likely feels like an impossible challenge under urgent, abridged circumstances. For those watching from abroad, the duration of the US presidential election cycle – beginning immediately after the mid-term elections and spanning nearly two years – has always been a bit of a headscratcher. The United Kingdom completed snap elections earlier this month that lasted six weeks from start to finish. Even President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to surprise Europe with elections in France held the country in suspense for just under a month. The lengthening of the US election timeline across modern presidential history, alongside the ballooning of campaign financing, may feel foundational to democracy. But seen through a comparative lens, these dynamics are idiosyncratically American.
Amid this major test of the US political system, Vice President Kamala Harris has enjoyed a storybook start to her presidential campaign. Just over a week in, she could not have written it up better if she tried. With Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and President Barack and Michelle Obama all endorsing her this past week, Harris saw the last of the dominoes fall in her favor. She can check the first benchmark, party unity, off her to-do list.
Harris’s campaign has seen a stunning inflow of donations that have reportedly broken historical records. Her early campaign messaging of fighting for America’s future, and the imagery of Harris as prosecutor versus the perpetrator, former President Donald Trump, is resonating. Latest head-to-head polling puts Harris and Trump at a virtual statistical tie, offering an ingredient for the Democratic campaign that Biden could not seem to bring: belief. Harris has Democrats believing she can expand the umbrella of potential constituencies and deliver a wider Democratic coalition in November. Harris even conquered social media with Charli XCX labeling her “brat,” which will perhaps prove to be the 2024 version of former Obama’s 2008 one-word mantra of “Hope.”
Leaders and watchers from abroad who have been wringing their hands for months over prospects of a Trump 2.0 find themselves taking a crash course on Harris. Without absolute clarity about what a Harris presidency would look like, the safe bet is that she will represent a policy continuity story for the Democrats. Foreign policy is particularly a “black box.” Unlike Biden, Harris is not known for her foreign policy experience. Having made fewer than two dozen trips abroad during her vice presidency, Harris was never assigned a foreign policy “patch” as VP and served more as a surrogate for high-level conferences and meetings like the Munich Security Conference.
Across the aisle, Trump is also waking up to the full reality of Harris’s candidacy. His plan to run down the clock to November by appealing to his base now faces alarm bells. Where his address at the Republican National Convention and selection of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate seemed like obvious tactics in the pre-Harris world, the risk is that Trump has narrowed his pathway to victory in November. He must now decide whether and how to get out of the trap he laid for himself, a position he most certainly will reject in favor of rallying cries around election integrity, fraud, and a rigged system.
Given all that is at play, it is hard to know which election narrative ultimately rings truest on Nov. 5. Will the anti-incumbency, anti-establishment sentiment circling the globe prove decisive? Does age – first Biden’s but potentially now Trump’s – matter? Is the existential threat to US democracy the single and most animating force for voters? Did Harris’s entrance come too late for a political system used to knock-down-drag-out campaign fights? And will there be blood? Whichever trend proves most salient, the summer of 2024 reset the race. The election countdown starts now.
Dr. Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
President Joe Biden addresses the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on July 24, 2024, about his decision to drop his Democratic presidential reelection bid.
Biden passes the torch to veep and voters
In his first address to the nation since ending his reelection bid last weekend, President Joe Biden framed his decision to bow out of the race as a sacrifice for the sake of American democracy.
“I revere this office but I love my country more,” he said in a historically minded address from the Oval Office on Wednesday night. “This task of perfecting our union is not about me … it’s about ‘we the people.’”
While calling for unity, he framed the November election as a pivotal choice for American voters between “hope or hate” and said that while he felt his experience and record justified another term, it was time to pass the torch to “a new generation of leaders.” Vice President Kamala Harris, he said, is “experienced, tough, and capable.”
To help shape her campaign, he pledged to focus his remaining months in office on key Democratic themes: protecting the right to abortion, reducing gun violence, accelerating the fight against climate change, brokering a cease-fire in Gaza, and reducing prescription drug prices.
He also reiterated his intention to reform the Supreme Court – with term limits for justices and an ethics code likely to be on the agenda.
Why Biden’s exit gives Democrats a fighting chance
I have little doubt that President Joe Biden’s belated but essential decision to bow out of the 2024 presidential election on Sunday will go down in history as a patriotic act.
Following his infamous debate performance on June 27, an overwhelming majority of Americans – including two-thirds of Democrats – came to the conclusion that the president was no longer physically and mentally fit to serve another four-year term in office. As things stood last Saturday, Donald Trump – fresh off a failed assassination attempt and a triumphant Republican convention – looked set to retake the White House and likely control both houses of Congress, with little an ailing Biden could do to turn things around.
By finally agreeing to step down when his term ends in January, Biden jolted the race 100 days out and gave his party a fighting chance to protect the country – and the world – from what he sees as the existential threat of an unrestrained Trump. Only he had the power to do that, and when push came to shove (and there was plenty of shoving), he met the moment. It was a fitting capstone to a lifetime of public service.
This is what leadership looks like. Contrary to what many are claiming, there was nothing inevitable about Biden’s decision to withdraw. Yes, he was under immense pressure from his party and the media to step down. Yes, all evidence pointed toward near-certain disaster in November if he stayed on. Yes, his legacy was on the line. And yet … he still had a choice. His exit was not preordained. No one forced his hand – in fact, no one could force his hand. It was entirely up to Joe Biden, and Joe Biden alone, to do the right thing. This couldn’t have been easy – if it was, everyone would do it. And we know for a fact that not everyone would’ve made the same choice – least of all Trump, a man who is constitutionally incapable of putting party and country above himself.
Did Biden come to his decision reluctantly, and only after weeks spent in anger and denial? No doubt. It’s hard enough for anyone to voluntarily give up power, but it’s even harder for a person with Biden’s life history who’s also coming to terms with his own mortality. Should he have withdrawn much sooner? Absolutely – I never thought he should have run for reelection in the first place, and I said so publicly many times. Will this delay end up costing Democrats the election? It’s possible, though we may never know.
But we shouldn’t forget the “better” in “better late than never.” What matters most is that he finally got there. Biden could’ve held on until the bitter end, consequences be damned. Instead, he chose to put America first. It was a decision worthy of a leader. Not a winner, but a leader. He deserves credit for it – as does the Democratic Party, which has shown itself to be a much healthier and more functional institution than anyone thought. Can anyone seriously imagine today’s GOP launching a coordinated pressure campaign to depose Trump, even though so many Republicans privately criticize him as unfit and believe him to be an electoral drag?
It gives me a little hope in a country where politicians don’t often do the right thing, and where political parties all too easily bend to the will of their leaders even when it becomes clear they serve only themselves.
Harris or bust. Shortly after announcing his withdrawal, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination. The entire Democratic establishment – with the notable exception of Barack Obama – quickly followed suit and rallied behind her. Within 24 hours, Harris had been endorsed by every viable potential challenger as well as an overwhelming majority of Democratic governors, members of Congress, and state party chairs. By Monday evening, her campaign had raised $150 million from major donors and $81 million from small donors, and she had secured more than enough pledged delegates to become the party’s presumptive nominee.
Although an ostensibly competitive and democratically legitimate nomination process would have ultimately benefitted Democrats by ensuring the winner had what it takes to take on Trump and appeal to a broad swath of voters, the speed with which the party coalesced around Harris ensures next month’s convention in Chicago will be little more than a coronation ceremony. With only 54 delegates currently undecided and a minimum of 300 needed for any would-be nominee to compete, it’s impossible to imagine a challenger not named Marianne Williamson or Dean Phillips emerging.
And that’s … not a disaster for the Democrats. Harris may not have been the best possible candidate Democrats could’ve put forward a year (or four) ago, but she was the most viable candidate to replace Biden, unite the party, and avoid a down-ballot bloodbath at this late stage.
What can be, unburdened by what has been? The question now is not whether there was a better Democratic candidate than Harris, but whether Harris can beat Trump. And on that front, the jury is still out. We simply don’t have enough recent polling data on this matchup yet to get a decent idea of where things stand today.
Here’s what we do know: This is an incredibly tough environment for an incumbent’s successor, with a majority of voters telling pollsters they are unhappy with the state of the country. And Harris is no Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan – a generational talent with the charisma and vision to work political miracles. So she starts as the underdog accordingly. But off the bat, she has dramatically better odds than Biden because she solves the president’s biggest electability challenge: his age. And she has more upside than Trump, who remains a historically unpopular candidate with a hard ceiling of 45% of national support. By contrast, nearly 10% of Americans don’t even have an opinion of her yet, so she has room to define herself.
Can Harris break above Trump’s ceiling? She’s neither a proven national candidate nor a distinguished campaigner, having fizzled out before reaching the Iowa caucus during the 2020 presidential primaries. She has plenty of weaknesses for Republicans to exploit, including unpopular Biden administration policies (notably on the border) for which voters may blame her. And there’s a chance she could lose more older, white, and moderate working-class voters relative to Biden than she picks up young, nonwhite, and progressive ones.
But at 59, Harris is able to string together full sentences, give cogent stump speeches, campaign vigorously, and effectively deliver the abortion and democracy messages that worked well for Democrats in 2022. She can also play offense on Trump’s age – he’s 78 – and mental fitness, now an exclusively Republican liability that 50% of all voters found disqualifying in the former president nary a week ago.
How this will all net out in November, no one knows yet. Think about all that’s happened in the last two weeks, and imagine all that could change in the next 100 days. That’s an eternity in US politics – certainly longer than entire general election campaigns normally take in most other democracies.
All we can say for sure is Biden has given the Democrats a fighting chance and made the election both more competitive and more uncertain than it was a week ago.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the United Nations in New York September 21, 2011. Netanyahu said Wednesday that direct negotiation was the only way to achieve a stable Middle East peace and the Palestinian effort to secure U.N. recognition of statehood ''will not succeed.''
Mr. Netanyahu goes to Washington
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is addressing a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, visiting Washington at an awkward moment in US-Israel relations and amid ongoing international efforts for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, China helped facilitate an agreement between Hamas and its longtime political rival, Fatah, on Tuesday that would see the two Palestinian groups form a government together. Both Israel and the US have already thrown cold water on the deal, given their opposition to Hamas remaining in power in any capacity.
Netanyahu’s speech also comes at a chaotic time in US politics, with the country still reeling from the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump as well as President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 race.
Tough crowd. Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war against Hamas in Gaza – and vocal opposition to a two-state solution – has made him unpopular with a number of Democratic lawmakers while also creating tensions with the Biden administration. Some Democratic lawmakers are expected to boycott his speech, and Vice President Kamala Harris, now the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, will not preside over the Senate during the address due to a campaign event in Indianapolis.
Thousands are also poised to protest in the nation’s capital against the war in Gaza during Netanyahu’s visit, though pro-Israel demonstrators are also expected to turn up in Washington.
Given these circumstances, Netanyahu is likely to strike a more bipartisan tone than in the past and will probably focus on “the historical link and strategic value of the Israel-US relationship” in his speech, says Sofia Meranto, a Middle East analyst for Eurasia Group. During an address to Congress in 2015, Netanyahu controversially ripped into the nuclear deal with Iran that was being orchestrated by the Obama administration, infuriating many Democrats.
Netanyahu wants to use his Wednesday speech to “showcase that he has a unique relationship with US leaders — an argument he leans on domestically — and try to dispel sentiment in Israel that he has damaged the relationship with Washington,” adds Meranto.
President Joe Biden walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return to Washington, DC from Delaware on July 25, 2021.
Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race
President Joe Biden on Sunday announced he is standing down and will no longer seek reelection in 2024.
Biden, 81, made the extraordinary decision following weeks of speculation over concerns about his age and capacity to do the job following his disastrous debate performance in late June.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a statement.
“I will speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision,” Biden added.
Shortly after he announced that he was quitting the race, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this,” Biden said.
The president’s decision to step back reflects deep divisions among Democrats and came after a number of Democratic lawmakers urged Biden to drop out, both publicly and privately. Despite being heavily critical of Biden on issues such as the war in Gaza, progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood by him as centrist Democrats like Rep. Nancy Pelosi pushed Biden to quit the race.
It’s unclear precisely who the Democratic presidential nominee will be now, though Biden's endorsement of Harris makes her the frontrunner.
By dropping out, Biden opened the door for the Democratic Party to gather behind another candidate and for the delegates pledged to him to vote as they want. But if Democrats do not coalesce behind a particular candidate before the convention in August, it could pave the way for an open convention in which prospective nominees would vie for support from delegates. This would be messy and hasn’t happened since 1968.
A lot is now up in the air, and this is a risky gamble for the Democratic Party as it fights to prevent former President Donald Trump from winning a second term – particularly as he seems to be gaining momentum following the assassination attempt a little over a week ago.Who are the biggest losers from Biden’s collapsing candidacy?
Joe Biden thinks he’s digging in, but in reality, he’s only digging down. And as usual, the longer this goes on the worse it gets.
It’s now been two weeks since his cadaverous, confused performance at the presidential debate, and the crisis surrounding his candidacy isn’t just getting graver, it’s getting weirder.
After all, we are used to the other guy being the luminously spray-tanned leader who listens only to his family, attacks “elites,” distrusts the polls, and calls up cable news shows to rant about how he is the only person who can save America.
Biden and his staff are trying everything they can to shape the narrative that he’s still vigorous and viable – more interviews, another speech, another memo. At last night’s NATO press conference, he may have managed, for the time being, to dispel some of the biggest concerns about his neurological health.
But the polls are still clear. He is trailing even a deeply unpopular and criminally convicted Trump. A majority of Democrats now want Biden to step aside. The leaks about Democrat concern are turning into small floods. Some of those are from within the House, others from within the White House. Major donors and celebrity backers have begun pulling the plug.
Slowly, and then all at once, is how dams break. In this case, the sooner the better because there are some important people who have work to do to restore their credibility after all of this.
Chief among them, of course, is Biden himself. He may really believe he’s still that scrappy ol’ kid from Scranton, dusting himself off for one last comeback – but the game is up: If this is a film, it’s not “Rocky II,” it’s “Weekend at Bernie’s.”
I don’t pretend to know if another ticket – probably Kamala Harris with a well-chosen Veep – would be a lock to beat Donald Trump. But it seems clear that Biden’s already weak poll numbers have little room to grow.
Every gaffe, leak, or stumble is only downside, particularly now that doubts have been clearly planted. What seems clear, at a minimum, is that Biden is at his ceiling, while anyone else is probably not. A big difference in an election that is likely to be very tight.
A wise Biden can take the next few days to arrange a graceful – and gracious – exit from his candidacy that preserves his ability to help, rather than hinder, whoever succeeds him.
In a way, his unexpectedly strong showing at the NATO presser sets him up to exit with more dignity – on his terms, as an aging leader, judiciously stepping aside for the good of the country, rather than as a humiliated grandparent forced to hand over his keys. There is certainly a good speech to be written that enables him to do this. And we know he performs well with teleprompters.
The second big loser in all of this is the Democratic Party itself. For three years, we’ve been told two things: That if Trump wins, American democracy is over, and that Biden is vigorous, coherent, and ready to do the job of defending our republic.
But now we know the second thing is untrue – or at least appears untrue to enough voters that it’s a political fact. And that leaves us questioning whether the party really believes the first thing either.
In other words, you want me to believe that this could be the final fight for democracy, and you’re sending in a man visibly tired by the job. If he can’t do fundraisers later than 8 p.m., how’s he gonna work later than 2027?
Ushering Biden aside now would give Democrats a fresh surge of enthusiasm and interest – upstaging the RNC next week would be a media coup of Trumpian proportions.
But it would also be a chance to reset their narrative and credibility. Instead of trying to persuade unenthusiastic voters to simply shove an ailing man across the line in four months for the sake of “democracy,” they can lay out a vision of governing for the next four years. Above all, they could suddenly be the party that is not running one of the two men who most Americans now find “embarrassing.”
Lastly, “the media.” I use that term in quotations because the various print, cable, and social media sources do not constitute “a media.” But this episode has nevertheless damaged people’s already low trust in mainstream outlets.
On the one hand, Biden critics say mainstreamers have displayed at best an unseemly lack of curiosity about the president’s health, and at worst an inclination to actively protect him from scrutiny on this subject. It’s true that the Biden White House has been unusually opaque, but in principle that should have invited more scrutiny, not less. And clips of mainstream press shooting down questions about Biden’s gaffes as “right-wing” propaganda or “fake news” have not aged well.
Meanwhile, on the other side, some big Biden defenders now feel – in an odd, through-the-looking-glass moment – that “the media” is unfairly attacking their candidate, cynically turning public opinion against him without focusing enough on the other guy’s weaknesses. I find it odd to suggest that somehow the mainstream media hasn’t done enough to highlight Trump’s shortcomings, but these are strange times.
The good news, again, is that Biden, the Democrats, and the media all have a chance to reset, reflect, and refocus.
But with just a few months before the election, there isn’t much time. They have to stop digging down and start digging out. Over to you, Mr. President.
And now, over to you, readers! Should Biden step aside? Has the press done a bad job? Are Democrats in trouble? Let us know what you think here. Include your name and where you’re writing from, and we may run your response in an upcoming edition of our popular newsletter, GZERO Daily.Hey, progressives, it’s time to look in the mirror
He has the look of an aging but determined Rafael Nadal trying to make one last comeback. He heaves his body back and looks poised to crush a forehand, as he has a thousand times before. This time, however, it doesn’t go as expected. To his utter shock, the ball hits the net and limply falls to the ground. “Why?” his look implies. “Why are we losing here?” He resets to try for another point, but he nets it again.
Only this isn’t Nadal.
It’s Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans and current co-chair of Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Landrieu, like so many progressives looking for another Obama moment, cannot understand why so many people are choosing Trump over Biden. It’s like there is an invisible, Don DeLillo-esque cloud hanging overhead with the words, “How are we losing to him?”
Make no mistake, Landrieu is very good at his job and not only deeply understands Biden’s policies — after all, he helped oversee the trillion-plus-dollar infrastructure bill — he’s also a Biden believer. That means he can’t stand Donald Trump. Or, more precisely, he cannot understand why so many people like the former president.
So here he was, playing the anti-Trump hits on stage in Toronto at our US-Canada Summit to a room that just kept shrugging: 34 felony convictions; sexual assault charge; Jan. 6 insurrection; can’t keep staff; Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, called his claims of a stolen election "bogus.” Periodically, Landrieu would look at the crowd, seemingly exasperated by the lack of emotion, and ask, “Why are we normalizing Donald Trump?” But he never asked the more painful question: “Why are our policies so unpopular?” He was like the aging athlete, baffled as to why he is still not winning.
The Dems’ case against Trump has been made countless times, but it simply is not working. At Eurasia Group, we have the odds of Trump winning at 60%. David Axelrod, the former Obama campaign guru and current CNN political commentator, was with us watching Landrieu. As I wrote last week, I asked Axelrod whether Democrats need to spend more time reflecting on why their policies are not connecting with voters and less time trying to convince people that Trump is a big baddy.
“Absolutely,” he responded, going on to describe how Democrats have lost touch with large swaths of the American public, content with lecturing them in condescending tones about how to be better citizens and “more like us” — meaning the folks who run around Washington telling people what to say and what not to say. Democrats are like the kid in the front of the class with his hand up all the time. He may have the right answers, but no one likes him.
“Strong and wrong beats weak and right,” Axelrod said, repeating a Bill Clinton line. And Biden looks weak. Not only that, Axelrod made the point that Democrats focus too heavily on what they have done in the past, not what they will do in the future.
What’s next beats what was, and progressives are losing on that score. Anew poll from the American Survey Center found that “Nearly six in 10 (58 percent) say America’s best days are behind it. Forty percent say America’s best days are yet to come.” This marks a huge change since 2020 when most Americans were optimistic about the future.
As Daniel Cox writes, while most candidates run on optimism, Trump runs on pessimism because it’s connecting with his large constituency — primarily white male voters. “Forty-three percent of Americans who believe people are not to be trusted have a favorable view of Trump compared to 28 percent of those who say people are generally trustworthy,” he writes. It’s not morning again in America, like under Ronald Reagan; this is Trump’s American carnage, reflecting how many people actually think.
Incumbents around the world are facing “Thelma & Louise” moments right now: If they keep doing what they are doing, they will drive off a cliff. So it’s not just progressives. In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is already airborne and plummeting toward the ground. Narendra Modi got punished in India. Emmanuel Macron is floundering in France, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in even worse political shape.
A new Ipsos poll done for Global News found that 68% of Canadians want Trudeau to step down. Snowstorms poll higher than that in Canada. “This is as bad as we’ve seen it for Trudeau,”Ipsos CEO Darrell Brickertold Global. “It’s close to rock bottom.”
On June 24, Trudeau will face a major test with a byelection in what has long been one of the safest Liberal ridings in the country, St. Paul’s, in downtown Toronto. The Liberals should win easily, but it’s going to be close, and if they somehow lose, Trudeau will feel more heat than from today’s weather bomb to step down. (Conservatives don’t want him to go, preferring to run against a weakened Trudeau in the next election.)
Still, the point remains: Progressive ideas are not connecting. If the policies were actually working — a case both Biden and Trudeau are trying to make — poll results would look rosier. But they don’t.
Trudeau’s signature tax on carbon to deal with climate change is now a shield — not a sword — issue. His attempt to change the narrative by igniting a class war with his new capital gains tax on the rich has done little to reframe the narrative, but the poorly explained policy has alienated lots of centrist voters. In politics, the old saw “Explaining is losing” has always seemed trite to me — policy often takes time to be understood — but if the explanation is bad, then, yeah, you are losing.
Biden is trying to boost his image by offering undocumented spouses a pathway to permanent US residency and his student loan forgiveness. Both may be popular, but neither has really improved his polling. Why?
Trudeau is facing a change wave, and Biden an age wave, but the issues are deeper than that. The fundamental premise that progressives pitch — that their social and economic policies work to improve people’s quality of life — is losing its plausibility, weakened by inflation, a world in crisis, and a long-term, low-growth environment. Trump may not have solid answers — his self-absorbed victimization narrative lacks facts, optimism, and generosity — but his dark view of the world reflects a mood, and people mistake that for truth. Trump reflects how many people feel; Biden is promising things many no longer believe are possible.
Populism always has an angry protest strain to it, but the response to it is usually clear: Show growth. Build things that work: roads, hospitals, opportunities. Don’t go broke. And finally, get stuff done, and be seen to be getting it done. People have to feel better about their lives. And they are not.
Progressives keep looking in the mirror, and they only see opponents they believe are unfit for office. They have to start seeing themselves and figure out why their promises and policies are not connecting more widely. Self-reflection is hard, but tearing down the other guy only works for so long, especially for an incumbent. They need to reinvent themselves as credible leaders promising something better in the future, not just recycled defenders of their past glory days. They must prove their big new promises are doable in short periods of time. Otherwise, they risk looking like those aging athletes who criticize the skills of the new generation of competitors but keep losing. In politics, the past ain't prologue. It just doesn’t work that way. Just ask Rafa Nadal.
Biden pushes forward on AI
Joe Biden is starting to walk the talk on artificial intelligence. Federal agencies have until December to get a handle on how to use — and minimize the risks from — AI, thanks to new instructions from the White House Office of Management and Budget. The policies mark the next step along the path laid out by Biden’s October AI executive order, adding specific goals after a period of evaluation.
What’s new
Federal agencies will need to “assess, test, and monitor” the impact of AI, “mitigate the risks of algorithmic discrimination,” and provide “transparency into how the government uses AI.”
It’s unclear to what extent AI currently factors into government work. The Defense Department already has key AI investments, while other agencies may only be toying with the new technology. Under Biden’s new rules, agencies seeking to use AI must create an “impact assessment” for the tools they use, conduct real-world testing before deployment, obtain independent evaluation from an oversight board or another body, do regular monitoring and risk-assessment, and work to mitigate any associated risks.
Adam Conner, vice president of technology policy at the Center for American Progress, says that the OMB guidance is “an important step in articulating that AI should be used by federal agencies in a responsible way.”
The OMB policy isn’t solely aimed at protecting against AI’s harms. It mandates that federal agencies name a Chief AI Officer charged with implementing the new standards. These new government AI czars are meant to work across agencies, coordinate the administration’s AI goals, and remove barriers to innovation within government.
What it means
Dev Saxena, director of Eurasia Group's geo-technology practice, said the policies are “precedent-setting,” especially in the absence of comprehensive artificial intelligence legislation like the one the European Union recently passed.
Saxena noted that the policies will move the government further along than industry in terms of safety and transparency standards for AI since there’s no federal law governing this technology specifically. While many industry leaders have cooperated with the Biden administration and signed a voluntary pledge to manage the risks of AI, the new OMB policies could also serve as a form of “soft law” to force higher standards of testing, risk-assessment, and transparency for the private sector if they want to sell their technology and services to the federal government.
However, there’s a notable carveout for the national security and defense agencies, which could be targets for the most dangerous and insidious uses of AI. We’ve previously written about America’s AI militarization and goal of maintaining a strategic advantage over rivals such as China. While they’re exempted from these new rules, a separate track of defense and national-security guidelines are expected to come later this year.
Fears and concerns
Still, public interest groups are concerned about the ways in which the citizens’ liberties could be curtailed when the government uses AI. The American Civil Liberties Union called on governments to do more to protect citizens from AI. “OMB has taken an important step, but only a step, in protecting us from abuses by AI. Federal uses of AI should not be permitted to undermine rights and safety, but harmful and discriminatory uses of AI by national security agencies, state governments, and more remain largely unchecked,” wrote Cody Venzke, ACLU senior policy counsel, in a statement.
Of course, the biggest risk to the implementation of these policies is the upcoming presidential election. Former President Donald Trump, if reelected, might keep some of the policies aimed at China and other political adversaries, Saxena says, but could significantly pull back from the rights- and safety-focused protections.
Beyond the uncertainty of election season, the Biden administration has a real challenge going from zero to full speed. “The administration should be commended on its work so far,” Conner says, “but now comes the hard part: implementation.”