Hodan Omaar

OMB should support the development of voluntary standard terms for AI contracts to make procurement more efficient and expand access to federal contracts to as diverse and large a pool of vendors as possible so federal agencies can access the best systems.

This legislation lays out a proactive agenda to foster responsible AI development and deployment in the United States.

A landmark ruling in 2015 made it harder for artists and record labels to determine where permissible influence and interpolation become impermissible appropriation and plagiarism. Congress should make things more consistent, accurate, and fair by directing the Copyright Office to launch a competition for the private sector to come up with an AI-enabled tool to compare how similar a musical composition or recording is to existing copyright-protected works.

California's new AI bill stands to seriously hinder the development of state-of-the-art systems in the state, where much of the frontier AI development in the U.S. is taking place. And since California often sets the tone for action in other states, this bill risks setting a precedent for a fragmented regulatory landscape for AI safety across the country.

Cloaking narratives about existential risks of AI in apocalyptic religious language only serves to prevent good-faith efforts to address potential risk scenarios.

While the Artificial Intelligence Research, Innovation, and Accountability (AIRIA) Act strikes the balance between innovation and accountability better than other AI policy proposals, it puts the horse before the cart, requiring the Commerce Department to come up with technical solutions to complex, nontechnical problems that haven’t been fully defined yet.

The decision by so many governments, especially the United States, to legitimize the belief that AI presents an existential risk that governments must address will seriously undermine efforts to rapidly develop and adopt the technology for beneficial purposes.

In the nearly 25 years since NSF held the U.S. government’s first workshop on the topic, it has become increasingly apparent that quantum information science has the potential to drive major advances in computing power, secure communication, and scientific discovery. So, the government has rightly recognized it needs to play an active role in ensuring the nation remains competitive in this critical field.

The biggest risk to consumers is that the myriad opportunities AI offers will not be translated into all the areas where they can make a positive difference in people’s lives.

Oppenheimer, has many people drawing parallels between the control of nuclear weapons and the calls to curb AI. But developing and deploying powerful AI systems is not like developing and deploying the atomic bomb.

The White House is developing a national artificial intelligence strategy to “chart a path for the United States to harness the benefits and mitigate the risks of AI.” Previous administrations and Congress have taken some steps toward this in the past, but those efforts did not go far enough.

A national AI strategy is necessary to bolster U.S. competitiveness, strengthen national security, and maximize the societal benefits that the country could derive from AI.

Join ITIF's Center for Data Innovation for a panel discussion exploring how threats from AI voice cloning are likely to develop, what countermeasures exist, and actionable steps policymakers can take to address both national and international threats.

Hodan Omaar speaks at the 2024 State of the Net Conference on a panel about artificial intelligence and creativity in the arts.

Hodan Omaar speaks at Foreign Policy's FP Tech Forum during the 78th annual UN General Assembly. She joins an expert panel to explore how technologies are shaping geopolitics and development around the world.

Gillian Diebold and Hodan Omaar speak about artificial intelligence and how it will impact different sectors of society at a webinar hosted by the Internet Law & Policy Foundry.

Watch the panel discussion on what the NQIA got right, where there is room for improvement, and what policymakers should do next.

Watch ITIF's Center for Data Innovation's panel discussion on the impact and efficacy of AI policy to date. Experts will debate on how policymakers can best nurture the capabilities and activities of the U.S. AI ecosystem moving forward.

Hodan Omaar speaks at Microsoft Innovation and Policy Center's event emphasizing the importance that policymakers ensure to internationalize efforts to mitigate harm from deepfakes and disinformation as malign information campaigns are increasingly targeting non-English speakers and immigrant communities.

Watch the Center for Data Innovation's discussion on the proposed amendments to the EU’s AI Act for general-purpose systems and its implications for AI development, innovation, and deployment in the EU and beyond.

Hodan Omaar presented at the "Democracy Affirming Technology: Restoring Trust Online" event, which identified and discussed solutions for some of the problems surrounding disinformation online, including the threat of deepfake information campaigns to national security and democratic values.

ITIF’s Center for Data Innovation held a panel discussion on how policymakers can maximize social good by encouraging the reuse of aggregated, anonymized, private-sector mobility data while protecting individual users’ privacy.

Watch ITIF’s Center for Data Innovation for a conversation with Ben Shneiderman, whose new book calls for a “human-centered” perspective on AI, as opposed to a “technology-centered” focus, so as to better serve human needs.

ITIF's Center for Data Innovation hosted a discussion about a new report exploring steps Congress and federal agencies can take to support quantum computing in the United States.