Senators urge $32 billion in emergency spending on AI after finishing yearlong review
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of four senators led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is recommending that Congress spend at least $32 billion over the next three years on developing artificial intelligence and putting safeguards around it. seize the opportunities and address the risks” of rapidly developing technology.
The group of two Democrats and two Republicans said in an interview Tuesday that while they sometimes disagreed on the best paths forward, it was imperative to find consensus on the emerging technology and other countries like China that are heavily involved in its development to invest. They arrived at a series of broad policy recommendations that are included in their 33-page report.
While legislation related to AI will be difficult to pass, especially in an election year and in a divided Congress, senators said regulation and incentives for innovation are urgently needed.
“It’s complicated, it’s difficult, but we can’t afford to bury our heads in the sand,” said Schumer, D-N.Y., who convened the group last year after AI chatbot ChatGPT hit the market and left see that this is possible in many cases. ways to imitate human behavior.
The group recommends in the report that Congress should craft “emergency” spending legislation to boost U.S. investment in artificial intelligence, including new research and development and new testing standards to try to understand the technology’s potential harms. The group also recommended new transparency requirements as artificial intelligence products are rolled out and research is conducted on AI’s potential impact on jobs and the U.S. workforce.
Republican Senator Mike Rounds, a member of the group, said the money would be well spent not only to compete with other countries rushing into the AI space, but also to improve the quality of life for Americans – supporting technology that could help some people heal. cancer or chronic diseases, he said, or improvements in weapons systems could help the country avoid war.
“This is a time when the dollars we put into this particular investment will pay long-term dividends for the taxpayers of this country,” he said.
The group met a year ago after Schumer made the issue a priority — an unusual stance for a majority leader — and included Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana and Rounds of South Dakota fetched.
When the four senators met with tech executives and experts, Schumer said in a speech last summer that the rapid growth of artificial intelligence tools was a “moment of revolution” and that the government must act quickly to regulate companies developing these tools.
Young said the development of ChatGPT, along with other similar models, made them realize that “we as an institution are going to have to collectively figure out how to interact with the technology.
“In the same breath that people were marveling at the capabilities of just that one generative AI platform, they were starting to hypothesize about future risks that might be associated with future developments in artificial intelligence,” Young said.
While passing legislation will be difficult, the group’s recommendations provide the first comprehensive roadmap for an issue that is complex and has little precedent for consideration in Congress. The group spent nearly a year compiling the list of policy suggestions after speaking privately and publicly with a range of tech companies and other stakeholders, including in eight forums to which the entire Senate was invited.
The first forum in September included Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of X, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Schumer said after the private meeting that he asked everyone in the room — including nearly two dozen tech executives, advocates and skeptics — whether the government should play a role in overseeing artificial intelligence, and “everyone raised their hands.”
The four senators pitch their recommendations to the Senate committees, who are then tasked with reviewing them and trying to figure out what’s possible. The Senate Rules Committee is already moving through legislation, voting Wednesday on three bills that would ban deceptive AI content used to influence federal elections, require AI disclaimers on political ads and create voluntary guidelines for state election agencies that oversee on candidates.
Schumer, who controls the Senate schedule, said these election bills were among the chamber’s “highest priorities” this year. He also said he planned to talk to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has expressed interest in looking at AI policy but has not said how he would do that.
Some experts warn that the US is behind many other countries on this issue, including the EU, which took the lead in March when it gave final approval to a sweeping new law governing artificial intelligence in the 27-nation bloc. The European AI law sets stricter rules for the AI products and services that are considered to pose the greatest risks, such as in medicine, critical infrastructure or policing. But it also includes provisions regulating a new class of generative AI systems like ChatGPT, which have made rapid progress in recent years.
“It’s time for Congress to act,” said Alexandra Reeve Givens, CEO of the Center for Democracy. & Technology. “It is not enough to focus on investments and innovation. We need guardrails to ensure the responsible development of AI.”
Senators emphasized the balance between these two issues, as well as the urgency of action.
“We have the lead on this issue right now, and it will define the relationship between the United States and our allies and other competing powers around the world for a long time to come,” Heinrich said.
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Associated Press writer Matt O’Brien in Providence, RI, contributed to this report.