Congress turns its attention to artificial intelligence this week as some of the biggest names in Big Tech descend on Capitol Hill for a first-of-its-kind meeting to brainstorm ways lawmakers can regulate the fast-moving technology that Experts have warned it could lead to human extinction.
In a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, the 100 senators will hear from Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and renamed it X; Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates; Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT’s OpenAI company; and a host of other prominent tech leaders for what Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has called his inaugural AI Insight Forum.
The Senate brainstorming sessions will extend into the fall.
“Let’s see if there’s enough oxygen in the room for all of us,” joked Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who plans to attend.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said with a smile that he anticipates “a lot of drama” on Wednesday, perhaps a nod to the much-hyped cage match that never materialized this year between tech titans Musk and Zuckerberg.
“We’ll see what really happens content-wise,” Lankford said, adding that “all those tech CEOs are surrounded by lawyers telling them what to say and what not to say.”
With a who’s who of the tech world in one building, the forum is sure to attract an army of employees, lobbyists and reporters. Security increases every time Musk, also the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and the richest person in the world, enters the Capitol; Security will be even tighter with a band of tech billionaires roaming the halls.
That same day, a House Oversight subcommittee, led by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., will hold a hearing with Biden administration technology officials titled: “How Are Federal Agencies Leveraging Intelligence?” artificial?”
And on Tuesday, the Senate will hold a pair of hearings on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The leaders of a key Commerce and Science subcommittee: Sens. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee. – you will hear testimony from experts on how AI companies can increase transparency and public trust.
The Senate duo recently unveiled a bipartisan framework for their upcoming legislation, simply called the US AI Act, which includes requiring AI companies to register with an independent oversight body to ensure they can be held legally responsible for things like privacy violations and explicit deepfakes and mandating transparency requirements for training data and the accuracy of AI models.
Blumenthal said his bipartisan framework is “closely aligned” with Schumer’s framework on AI, and said the committees are “working closely” with the Democratic leader’s high-profile tech forums.
“For the leader to make it a priority and dedicate so much time to it sends a powerful signal about the need for legislation,” Blumenthal said in an interview. “We all know that the way Congress works is that legislation comes from committees. Very rarely does a bill go directly to the floor and it is certainly not a bill of this importance.”
It is still unknown whether the legislation can be drafted and presented to the plenary session before the end of the year.
2023-09-12 19:15:43
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