In February 2019, the president issued Executive Order 13859, which directed the Secretary of Commerce, through the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to issue “a plan for Federal engagement in the development of technical standards and related tools in support or reliable, robust, and trustworthy systems in AI technology.” NIST, with public and private sector input, issued the AI plan on August 9, 2019. The plan “provides guidance regarding the important characteristics of standards to help agencies in their decision making about AI standards.”
