Congress is looking to ink artificial intelligence regulation in just months--and tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk all support regulatory guardrails for A.I.
"There's some chance--above zero--that A.I. will kill us all. I think it's low, but there's some chance," Musk said to reporters, following a closed-door discussion on the potential for regulating artificial intelligence. "The consequences of getting A.I. wrong are severe."
The titans of tech descended onto Capitol Hill Wednesday for the session, which was the first of nine similar discussions delving into hot-button issues involving A.I. like workforce implications, innovation, privacy, copyright, and more. Besides Musk, Zuckerberg, and Gates, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Nvidia Corporation co-founder Jensen Huang, and Google's Sundar Pichai were among the nearly two dozen tech executives in attendance.
Most of the tech executives found consensus during the six-hour discussion: Yes, A.I. should be regulated considering the threat that it poses.
"I asked everyone in the room, does government need to play a role in regulating A.I.?" Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during a press briefing. "Every single person raised their hand, even though they had diverse views."
One idea that gained some support: creating a new federal agency to oversee artificial intelligence. Musk likened it to having an A.I. referee.
Wednesday's forum also touched on ideas for helping the U.S. stay competitive against foreign nations. "Washington needed to be involved, partly on behalf of the American people but also so that we as a nation can set the standard for the rest of the world," Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) told reporters.
In terms of how quickly legislation can hit, Schumer told reporters that it's sometime "in the general category of months."
Businesses--along with the rest of the world--find themselves walking a tightrope when it comes to A.I. adoption: Integrate A.I. fast to grow against the competition, but beware of the disruptive effects. A survey from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released on Thursday shows how increased technology adoption directly spurs profits, sales, and overall employment.
But the road to getting there is nuanced. Agreeing that A.I. needs to be regulated is one thing, but crafting bipartisan legislation that impacts companies is a far different matter. Striking a balance is the ultimate test: While large tech players agree there's a need for regulation, they argue that too much could stifle innovation. Of course, laws do not look to see if the company being regulated agrees with the regulation, just that it adheres to it.
While all 100 senators received the invite, about 60 showed up. And not everyone was praising the historic forum. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) dubbed it "the Big Tech cocktail party," while Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) criticized the meeting for not being publicly accessible.
Tech billionaires "want to shape regulation so that the current tech billionaires are the ones who continue to dominate and make money," Senator Warren said in an interview with NBC News. "They should not have a forum to do that, especially a closed-door forum."
On the other side of Capitol Hill, President Biden has been accepting voluntary commitments from companies like Nvidia, Adobe, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google to abide by A.I. rules including watermarking A.I.-generated content. The White House has been working on an A.I. executive order, reports Reuters.
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