US senators announce bipartisan AI legislative effort
The detailed bills will be unveiled on Tuesday during the AI hearing with Microsoft’s president Brad Smith and Nvidia’s chief scientist William Dally.
Two senior US senators introduced a bipartisan framework for artificial intelligence (AI) regulation.
In the latest attempt by Congress to catch up with the recent development of the technology, the heads of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and Law, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, and Sen. Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, announced an exhaustive framework to regulate AI.
In interviews on Thursday, the senators explained that the laws would include provisions for AI licensing and testing, a new federal agency to supervise the technology, additional requirements for data transparency and security standards, and the intention to hold tech companies liable for privacy and civil rights infringements. The detailed bills will be unveiled on Tuesday during the AI hearing with Microsoft’s president Brad Smith and Nvidia’s chief scientist William Dally. The announcement comes as Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and other lawmakers have a separate closed-door “AI Insight Forum” with tech leaders on Wednesday, including ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Elon Musk.
Why does it matter?
Since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022, US lawmakers have tried to educate themselves on AI’s opportunities and risks to create rules for the industry.
Several tech leaders have cautioned about AI’s risks, such as disseminating false information, eliminating jobs, and influencing elections, and asked for regulation. In public and private sessions, OpenAI’s Sam Altman endorsed the idea of an independent AI agency to oversee licensing requirements and security norms, followed by Microsoft’s Brad Smith. Others, such as IBM and Google, oppose the creation of a new AI super-regulator.
In a meeting in July with President Biden and Vice President Harris, the CEOs of OpenAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and others committed to voluntary AI safeguards.
The proposal by US senators is a meaningful step towards regulating AI and ensuring that it is developed responsibly and ethically and used for the benefit of society.
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