AI's reality road

The big picture: Those who think trust in AI will remain low without a cautious and practical approach to AI development now include America's biggest banks and philanthropists, the White House, labor unions and a new class of niche venture capitalists.

• The emergence of this loose coalition of private sector and civil society organizations could lower the pressure on Congress to deliver AI regulation.

Between the lines: Advocates who see a middle ground with AI are moving more pragmatically and methodically than those at the extremes of the AI debate.

• They're focused on building evidence for their vision and raising funds from outside the biggest tech companies and venture capital firms — which takes more time than writing an open letter or blog post, or tapping existing investors for another round of funding.

What's happening: A growing number of groups are working to spur innovation while protecting against AI's immediate harms.

Players on the middle ground are taking actions across the economy, starting with unions stitching together a workplace AI safety net.

• Governments have committed to pre-deployment testing of very powerful AI modelsand the United Nations is beginning to develop "AI for good" plans to address urgent global social and environmental challenges.
• The federal government's AI risk management framework from NIST is broadly supported and will be implemented by a suite of Chief AI officers, while private AI companies have made a series of safety commitments to the White House.
• Philanthropists have committed more than $200 million towards public- interest AI development, and those funders are starting to deliver cash grants.
• Open source AI models have flooded the market, providing options and counterweights to the big closed systems that dominated the start of the generative AI hype cycle.
• A new class of venture capitalists is emerging, dedicated to pioneering AI safety investing, while 50 VCs have made voluntary commitments around how the startups they fund should develop AI responsibly.
• The U.S. and China remain each other's main AI scientific partner, even as geopolitical tensions soar.

Yes, but: The middle road remains a relatively narrow path, avoided by the biggest companies leading AI development.

• The field's giants, including the Microsoft/OpenAI alliance and Google, are flooring the pedal on deployment even as they make broad but vague commitments toward responsibility and caution.

Zoom in: Companies including Philips — a Dutch appliance-maker turned health tech company — are choosing narrow uses of AI, such as mobile lung cancer screening for firefighters, to demonstrate AI's practical value to American consumers, CEO Roy Jakobs told Axios.

• Philips is also teaming with the Gates Foundation to deliver home-based ultrasounds for at-risk pregnant women.
• Companies in regulated industries are rapidly expanding specialist roles for managing "responsible AI" — large U.S. banks increased their responsible AI staff by 43% between May-Sept. 2023, per a consultancy named Evident.
• Omidyar Network is directing its cash into projects intended to boost industry competition, worker power, and "belonging," while Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is focusing on keeping monopolies out of AI.

Between the lines: Those working to build middle ground AI options are not necessarily neutral or moderate — they're also pushing specific interests.

• For some, it's a rebranding of effective altruism or a way to limit the power of big tech companies, while others see AI safety as a cash cow.