AI just had its big day on Capitol Hill.
Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, and a leading figure in the current AI discourse, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee(opens in a new tab)privacy, technology and the law subcommittee for the first time on Tuesday. Members of Congress have lobbied Altman, as well as IBM’s Chief Privacy and Trust Officer, Christina Montgomery, and many aspects of generative AI, regarding potential risks and regulations in the space. resemble.
And the hearing went… surprisingly well?
I know it’s hard to believe. It’s a strange feeling to even write this, having covered many congressional hearings on technology over the years.
Unlike, say, all previous Congressional hearings on social media, members of Congress seemed to have a general understanding of what the potential risks posed by AI actually looked like. Septuagenarians may not benefit from online content moderation, but they certainly understand the concept of job loss due to emerging technology. Section 230 can be quite a confusing piece of legislation for non-web-savvy lawmakers, but they certainly know copyright laws when discussing potential AI concerns.
Another breath of fresh air from the IA hearing: it was a fairly bipartisan discussion. Social media hearings often turn into back-and-forths between Democrats and Republicans on issues like misinformation and online censorship.
Online discussions around AI can focus on “wake up“Chatbots and whether AI models should be able to pronounce racial slurs(opens in a new tab). However, there was none of that here in the hearing. Members of both parties appeared to be focused solely on the topic at hand, which, according to the title of the hearing, was AI Oversight: Rules for Artificial Intelligence. Even Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-LA) hypothetical scenario in which AI developers attempt to destroy the world has been brought back to life by the pundits who have turned to discussing datasets and training to the AI.
Perhaps the biggest say that things went as well as a technical congressional hearing could go: There are no memes going on. viral showing how out of touch US lawmakers are. The dramatic start to the hearing saw Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the committee’s chairman, play deepfake audio of himself reading a script generated by ChatGPT (audio deepfakes use AI models to clone voices). From there, the discussions remained productive until the end.
Yes, the bar is low when the comparison is at previous technical hearings. And the hearing wasn’t perfect. Much of the conversation surrounding AI right now is how dangerous technology is. Much of this is direct industry hype, an edgy attempt to commercialize the immense and profitable capabilities of AI(opens in a new tab) (Remember that crypto was going to be the future and those who didn’t throw their money into space were “NGMI” or “not going to make it?”). Moreover, legislators, as usual, seem awfully open to members of the industry they seek to regulate by crafting those same regulations. And, while Altman agreed with the need for regulation, we heard the same thing(opens in a new tab) Silicon Valley types, including some(opens in a new tab) who were in retrospect, probably bad faith actors.
But this hearing showed that it is possible for Congress to avoid the same mistakes it made with social media. But, remember, there’s just as much potential, if not more, for them to mess things up.
