The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has launched a call for information to shape the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy, which in turns seeks to harness the benefits and mitigate the risks of AI. 

A summary of our response 

• General, human-compatible AI could empower us all, but public trust in good science will be key. At Frontiers, we apply our AI tools to help nurture that trust.  

• Our Artificial Intelligence Review Assistant (AIRA) verifies that scientific knowledge is accurately and honestly presented even before our people decide whether to review, endorse, or publish the research paper that contains it.  

• Tackling global existential threats will require the widespread sharing of the latest scientific knowledge. All of it. We think scale matters. Good research published at scale, shared globally, and machine-read across large volumes of information, will grow our chances of success. 

We welcome the chance to respond to this important request for information from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Frontiers is a leading research publisher and open science platform. It is the third most-cited and sixth largest in the world. The science we publish is peer-reviewed, globally shared, and free to read.  

Our mission is to make all science open – so that we can collaborate better and innovate faster, for fairer and more equitable outcomes in all parts of society. That is our social purpose as a business.  

So, we fully support the August 2022 OSTP guidelines on immediate public access to federally funded research. We strongly welcomed them at the time. As a Gold Open Access publisher, we have made thousands of peer-reviewed articles available online immediately, without embargo. Our starting point – and end point – is ease of discovery.  

More broadly, as an open science publisher, Frontiers is above all a knowledge, information, and technology company. We were born digital and open access. We made the founding decision to build our own open science platform and continually to develop, improve, and customize it as we meet the evolving needs of the scientific community.  

We think the OSTP has posed critical questions in this request for information about the opportunities, challenges, risks, and benefits of artificial intelligence (AI). General, human-compatible AI could empower us all, but public trust in good science will be key. At Frontiers, we apply our AI tools to help establish that trust.  

Our Artificial Intelligence Review Assistant (AIRA) verifies that scientific knowledge is accurately and honestly presented even before our people decide whether to review, endorse, or publish the research paper that contains it. AIRA reads every research manuscript we receive and makes up to 20 checks per second. These checks cover, among other things, language quality, the integrity of figures and images, plagiarism, and conflicts of interest. The results give editors and reviewers another perspective as they decide whether to put a research paper through our rigorous and transparent peer review process.  

We face global, existential threats. From health emergencies to climate change, we see and feel them now. We can manage and reverse these threats, to live healthy lives on a healthy planet. But that will require political will, global collaboration, and scientific breakthrough at a scale not yet seen.  

On all those counts, success will depend on the widespread sharing of the latest scientific knowledge. All of it. We think scale matters. Tackling these threats will require more than incremental change. Good research published at scale, shared globally, and able to be machine-read across large volumes of information, will grow our chances of success.  

Leveraging AI to that end is already underway, and more can be done. But it is vital these AI solutions do not create or perpetuate inequity. The governance mechanisms and safeguards being proposed vary widely, and substantial new thinking and public funding will be required to bring that variance down and lift standards for compliance. The public funding of AI infrastructure and oversight must be as efficient, scalable, and as good a value for money as possible.  

We think it is possible to achieve the fullest possible access to our collective knowledge – for fairer outcomes in all parts of society – in a business model that is cost-effective, commercially sustainable, and underpinned by private sector innovation. We stand ready to support the OSTP and its partners in the federal government. It is vital we back responsible AI efforts for the good of open science and to meet the public appetite for accountability, transparency, and trust. 

Read our full response here:

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