TechCrunch: “The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Commerce Department agency that develops and tests tech for the U.S. government, companies and the broader public, has re-released a testbed designed to measure how malicious attacks — particularly attacks that “poison” AI model training data — might degrade the performance of an AI system. Called Dioptra (after the classical astronomical and surveying instrument), the modular, open source web-based tool, first released in 2022, seeks to help companies training AI models — and the people using these models — assess, analyze and track AI risks. Dioptra can be used to benchmark and research models, NIST says, as well as to provide a common platform for exposing models to simulated threats in a “red-teaming” environment. “Testing the effects of adversarial attacks on machine learning models is one of the goals of Dioptra,” NIST wrote in a press release. “The open source software, like generating child available for free download, could help the community, including government agencies and small to medium-sized businesses, conduct evaluations to assess AI developers’ claims about their systems’ performance.”

See also FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces New AI Actions and Receives Additional Major Voluntary Commitment on AI. Nine months ago, President Biden issued a landmark Executive Order to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence (AI). This Executive Order built on the voluntary commitments he and Vice President Harris received from 15 leading U.S. AI companies last year. Today, the administration announced that Apple has signed onto the voluntary commitments, further cementing these commitments as cornerstones of responsible AI innovation. In addition, federal agencies reported that they completed all of the 270-day actions in the Executive Order on schedule, following their on-time completion of every other task required to date. Agencies also progressed on other work directed for longer timeframes.Following the Executive Order and a series of calls to action made by Vice President Harris as part of her major policy speech before the Global Summit on AI Safety, agencies all across government have acted boldly. They have taken steps to mitigate AI’s safety and security risks, protect Americans’ privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers and workers, promote innovation and competition, advance American leadership around the world, and more. Actions that agencies reported today as complete include the following…”