FAA Sets Interim AI Policy for Agency  Personnel

The FAA has published a notice of national policy establishing an interim action plan on the use and limits of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) by agency personnel and contractors. This interim notice discusses GAI in terms of cybersecurity, accountability, intellectual property rights, and safeguarding information. The aim is to ensure that its use is “conducted in an ethical and responsible manner.”

For the purpose of this notice, the FAA defines AI as a “machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments.” Artificial intelligence systems use machine- and human-based inputs to “perceive real and virtual environments; abstract such perceptions into models through analysis in an automated manner; and use model inference to formulate options for information or action.”

Generative AI means “the class of AI models that emulate the structure and characteristics of input data in order to generate derived synthetic content. This can include images, videos, audio, text, and other digital content.”

Agency personnel must not use GAI to perform or facilitate illegal or malicious activities; cite it as direct evidence or authority for a determination/decision; use it to contravene or circumvent any requirement, guidance, order, policy, notice, or standard operating procedure that otherwise applies; abuse, harm, interfere with, or disrupt FAA activities or services; knowingly generate content that is meant to harm or imitate individuals or groups; and infringe on the intellectual property of a third party to create substantially similar new work.