- Capitol Hill is not known for being tech-savvy, but during a recent Senate hearing on AI regulation, legislators showed surprising knowledge and understanding of the topic.
- Senator Richard Blumenthal asked about setting safety breaks on AutoGPT, an AI agent that can carry out complex tasks, to ensure its responsible use.
- Senator Josh Hawley raised concerns about the working conditions of Kenyan workers involved in building safety filters for OpenAI's models.
- The hearing featured testimonies from Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, Stuart Russell, a computer science professor, and Yoshua Bengio, a professor at Université de Montréal.
- This indicates a growing awareness and interest among lawmakers in understanding and regulating AI technology.
Regulating artificial intelligence (AI) should be based on real market failures and a thorough cost-benefit analysis, as over-regulating AI could hinder its potential benefits and put the US at a disadvantage in the global race for AI leadership.
In his book, Tom Kemp argues for the need to regulate AI and suggests measures such as AI impact assessments, AI certifications, codes of conduct, and industry standards to protect consumers and ensure AI's positive impact on society.
Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Inflection AI, argues that restricting the sale of AI technologies and appointing a cabinet-level regulator are necessary steps to combat the negative effects of artificial intelligence and prevent misuse.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk suggests the need for government regulation of artificial intelligence, even proposing the creation of a Department of AI, during a gathering of tech CEOs in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other attendees also expressed the view that government should play a role in regulating AI. The options for regulation range from a standalone department to leveraging existing agencies, but the debate is expected to continue in the coming months.
A bipartisan group of senators is expected to introduce legislation to create a government agency to regulate AI and require AI models to obtain a license before deployment, a move that some leading technology companies have supported; however, critics argue that licensing regimes and a new AI regulator could hinder innovation and concentrate power among existing players, similar to the undesirable economic consequences seen in Europe.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales believes that regulating artificial intelligence (AI) is not feasible and compares the idea to "magical thinking," stating that many politicians lack a strong understanding of AI and its potential. While the UN is establishing a panel to investigate global regulation of AI, some experts, including physicist Reinhard Scholl, emphasize the need for regulation to prevent the misuse of AI by bad actors, while others, like Robert Opp, suggest forming a regulatory body similar to the International Civil Aviation Organisation. However, Wales argues that regulating individual developers using freely available AI software is impractical.
