S. 3336: Reliable Artificial Intelligence Research Act of 2025

The Reliable Artificial Intelligence Research Act of 2025 aims to enhance the safety and effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies by establishing research prize competitions. These competitions will focus on two main areas: **interpretability** and **adversarial robustness** of AI systems.

Definitions

Some key terms included in the bill are as follows:

• Adversarial robustness: This refers to how well an AI model can withstand attempts to trick it into producing incorrect or harmful outputs.
• Interpretability: This means how clearly a human can understand how an AI system makes decisions and changes its output based on different inputs.
• Red-teaming: This is a method of testing AI systems by simulating real-world scenarios to identify vulnerabilities.

Prize Competitions

The bill requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to initiate at least one prize competition focused on each of the following:

1. AI Interpretability

Within 270 days of the bill's enactment, the Secretary must start a competition aimed at improving the interpretability of AI models that are widely used or commercially available. This competition will be designed in consultation with various relevant federal agencies and industry experts.

2. AI Adversarial Robustness

Similarly, the Secretary must commence a prize competition focused on developing AI models that show significant strength against adversarial attacks, specifically for high-impact applications in government or industry.

Structure and Evaluation Criteria

The Secretary has the authority to structure these competitions in multiple phases, allowing for submissions of frameworks, models, and research. The evaluation criteria for submissions will focus on:

• The advancement of principles related to AI interpretability and robustness.
• The practical application of submissions in improving safety and understanding of high-risk AI uses.
• The potential for submitted research to help set standards in the AI field.

Program Administration

The Secretary is permitted to form partnerships with both for-profit and non-profit organizations, as well as various government levels, to design and manage these prize competitions.

Reporting Requirements

After the conclusion of the competitions, the Secretary must report to Congress within 180 days. This report will evaluate the contributions of the competitions to the fields of AI interpretability and robustness, identify any gaps in research, and recommend future actions for Congress.

Funding

The bill authorizes a budget of $10 million for these activities from fiscal years 2026 through 2030, aimed at supporting the objectives outlined in the legislation.

Relevant Companies

• GOOGL (Alphabet Inc.): As a major player in AI through products like Google AI and DeepMind, Alphabet could be impacted by new requirements for model interpretability and robustness.
• MSFT (Microsoft Corporation): Microsoft has extensive investments in AI technologies across its products, which may necessitate adaptation to comply with interpretability and robustness standards.
• AMZN (Amazon.com, Inc.): With AI applications in areas like its cloud services (AWS) and retail, Amazon may need to innovate to meet the standards encouraged by this bill.