NIST Launches Pilot Project to Propel AI Innovation, Accelerate Standards Development

Agency Seeks Public Input on AI Standards Zero Drafts Process

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking input on its newly launched pilot project, “AI Standards Zero Drafts,” which aims to expand participation in AI standards development and help standards developing organizations (SDOs) achieve consensus more quickly.

The project will distill stakeholder views on topics into ‘zero drafts’—"preliminary, stakeholder-driven drafts of standards that are as thorough as possible,” the agency reports. The drafts (the first of which will be approached as pilots) will then be submitted into the private sector-led standardization process to be developed into voluntary consensus standards.

NIST reports that the project, one of the topics at the recent NIST AI Symposium, is a response to documented challenges in AI standardization needs. AI stakeholders have noted that: 

• AI standards need to be developed expeditiously to address urgent needs, prevent fragmentation of governance frameworks, and keep up with AI advances—while still maintaining the rigor of the process and the quality of the resulting standards.
• AI standards demand a wide range of expertise and perspectives. Stakeholders seek to address many needs via AI standards. This makes it important for the standards to draw on multi-disciplinary perspectives, including from many kinds of organizations and stakeholders who develop, use, research, or are affected by AI systems.

As a solution, NIST has proposed the following process for the AI Standards Zero Drafts project: NIST releases a concept paper outlining a proposed direction for a standard. Based on the concept paper and broad stakeholder input, NIST proposes an initial draft standard, and subsequently revises based on further rounds of input. The resulting document is submitted to SDOs via established processes as a proposal for formal standardization.

Initial topics to be developed as pilot zero drafts are:

• Documentation about system and data characteristics for transparency among AI actors
• Methods and metrics for AI testing, evaluation, verification, and validation (TEVV)
• Maps of concepts and terminology regarding AI system designs, architectures, processes, and actors
• Technical measures for reducing risks posed by synthetic content

More details are available on NIST’s press release.

NIST is now accepting input on the project, including the proposed process; prioritization of topics and scopes; the needs that standards could address; the best way to scope zero drafts; and ideas to be incorporated into NIST’s initial concept notes on priority topics. Feedback should be emailed to [email protected].

The agency also welcomes organizations to host listening sessions; email [email protected] if interested.

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