Today, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson gave remarks at a roundtable with leading AI developers, civil society organizations, and academics on the benefits, risks, and policy options regarding open AI models, in relation to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Request for Comment on the topic. Secretary Raimondo moderated the discussion, which addressed the marginal benefits and risks of open AI models, systems of accountability and risk mitigation, the national security and societal impacts of open AI models, and existing and emerging approaches to AI evaluation. The Secretary commented on the Department of Commerce’s focus on the understanding the full spectrum of benefits and risks associated with development of open AI models, and the Department’s ongoing efforts to develop policy that manages security and societal risks without forgoing benefits to innovation, safety research, competition and more. Attendees included representation from Anthropic, the Center for Democracy & Technology, Demos, Google DeepMind, Greylock, Meta, MLCommons, OpenAI, RAND, Scale AI, the Stanford Center for Research on Foundation Models, and Upturn. Comments on NTIA’s RFC on Dual Use Foundation Models with Widely Available Model Weights are due within 30 days of publication of the Request for Comment in the Federal Register, or March 27, 2024.