Civil rights, technology and labor advocates warn that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (DN.Y.) bipartisan artificial intelligence (AI) guidance released Wednesday is not adequate to address the risks posed by the advancement of technology.
Guidance released by Schumer’s bipartisan working group encourages the committee’s work to address AI threats and recommends new funding to boost national AI innovation.
But groups that have been calling on Congress to quickly regulate AI said the guidance doesn’t do enough to address threats coming as the industry advances.
“We welcome a bipartisan agreement as a start to a transformational future of equity, justice and opportunity. But to create a sustainable, transformative nation of opportunity with emerging technologies like AI, we must have a powerful set of preventative barriers,” said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Leadership Conference Education Fund. in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the framework’s focus on promoting innovation and industry overshadows the real-world harms that could result from AI systems,” Wiley added.
The guidance, dubbed the “AI Roadmap,” was released by Schumer along with the bipartisan working group he put together, made up of Senators Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Todd Young (R-S.D.). R-Ind. ).
Encouraged $32 billion in non-defense AI funding through 2026 to maintain U.S. competitiveness in AI. But beyond spending details, the report largely leaves the rest to congressional committees and the private sector, rather than endorsing or defending any specific regulations.
“I don’t know if I read many legislative proposals in today’s report – maybe I got it wrong. I read a lot about ‘send to committee for consideration,’” Amba Kak, co-executive director of AI Now, said Wednesday at an AI roundtable with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and other AI advocates. technology and work. .
Schumer said the released report was intended to complement the committee’s work.
“We’re not kicking the ball down the road. This is the next logical step. We are not postponing or delaying. We’ve always thought that committees should be the next logical step, and I believe that a good number of them will come up with bipartisan legislation that we can pass — not all of them — but that we can pass before the end of the year,” Schumer said. said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The report was the result of a series of AI insights forums held over the past year, where technology industry leaders, researchers and civil society groups discussed the risks and benefits of AI in closed-door discussions with senators.
Accountable Tech co-founder and executive director Nicole Gill said the report is “just further proof of Big Tech’s deep and pervasive power to shape the policymaking process” and called the forums a “dream scenario for the technology industry.”
“The report itself is more concrete in offering a roadmap for industry priorities, while also just pointing to many of the most pressing challenges associated with the widespread adoption of AI: ensuring that AI applications do not further entrench existing inequalities , regulating its use in upcoming elections, and preventing even faster erosion of our climate through energy demand, to name a few,” Gill said in a statement.
Michael Khoo, climate misinformation program manager at Friends of the Earth, criticized the report for not addressing the energy impacts of AI in regulatory guidance, as the group has advocated.
“Senator Schumer is relaxing real regulations, giving Silicon Valley a free pass to put profits over people and the planet. Despite claims from big tech companies that AI will solve the climate crisis, it is currently doing the opposite, increasing carbon emissions due to its enormous energy needs,” Khoo said in a statement.
He also said that “in the absence of crucial protections,” AI “will turbocharge” the spread of climate misinformation.
Since the first forum was held last summer as the bipartisan group worked on the guidance report, some lawmakers have already begun drafting and releasing bills aimed at regulating AI as it relates to different topics.
Three bipartisan election-related AI projects, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), passed the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday. Klobuchar and other lawmakers have also introduced bills that aim to protect artists from AI recreations.
A bipartisan bill led by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) would create a framework that would require AI companies to apply for licensing, among other measures.
But as the U.S. approaches critical elections and as the technology industry pushes forward with innovations, no federal legislation has been passed to regulate AI.
“I think there is a lot of talk in the US about legislation. I will report this. There’s nothing that’s been approved, and the US is almost unique in that,” Mozilla colleague Deborah Raji said during Wednesday’s roundtable.
“There has been movement in other environments in a way that we haven’t seen in the U.S.,” Raji added.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
