A Social Outcomes and Priorities centered (SOP) Framework for AI policy

Rapid developments in AI and its adoption across various domains have necessitated a need to build robust guardrails and risk containment plans while ensuring equitable benefits for the betterment of society. The current technology-centered approach has resulted in a fragmented, reactive, and ineffective policy apparatus. This paper highlights the immediate and urgent need to pivot to a society-centered approach to develop comprehensive, coherent, forward-looking AI policy. To this end, we present a Social Outcomes and Priorities centered (SOP) framework for AI policy along with proposals on implementation of its various components. While the SOP framework is presented from a US-centric view, the takeaways are general and applicable globally.