Scared by ChatGPT, US lawmakers want to create an AI regulator

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

Another change urged by lawmakers and industry witnesses was to require disclosure to inform people when they are conversing with a language model and not a human, or when AI technology makes major decisions with changing consequences. life. An example might be a disclosure requirement to disclose when a facial recognition match is the basis for an arrest or criminal charge.

The Senate hearing follows growing interest from the US and European governments, and even some techies, in putting up new barriers to AI to prevent it from harming people. In March, a group letter signed by big names in technology and artificial intelligence called for a six-month hiatus on AI developmentand this month, the White House convened executives from OpenAI, Microsoft and other companies and announced it would back a Public hacking contest to investigate generative AI systems. He The European Union is also finalizing a sweeping law called the AI ​​Law..

IBM’s Montgomery yesterday urged Congress to take inspiration from the AI ​​Act, which classifies AI systems according to the risks they pose to individuals or society and sets rules for them, or even bans them, accordingly. He also backed the idea of ​​encouraging self-regulation, noting his position on IBM’s AI ethics council, though at Google and axon those structures have been mired in controversy.

The Center for Data Innovation, a technology think tank, said in a letter released after yesterday’s hearing that the US does not need a new AI regulator. “Just as it would be ill-advised for one government agency to regulate all human decision-making, it would be equally ill-advised for one agency to regulate all AI,” the letter stated.

“I don’t think it’s pragmatic, and it’s not what they should be thinking about right now,” says Hodan Omaar, the center’s principal analyst.

Omaar says the idea of ​​launching an entirely new agency for AI is unlikely given that Congress has yet to carry out other necessary technology reforms, such as the need for general data privacy protections. She thinks it’s better to update existing laws and allow federal agencies to add AI oversight to their existing regulatory work.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice issued a guide last summer about how companies that use algorithms in hiring, algorithms that can expect people to look or behave a certain way, can comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Such guidance shows how AI policy can overlap with existing law and involve many different communities and use cases.

Alex Engler, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, says he is concerned that the US could repeat problems that scuttled federal privacy regulation last fall. The landmark bill was struck down by California lawmakers who withheld their votes because the law would override the state’s privacy legislation. “That’s a good enough concern,” says Engler. “Now, is that a good enough concern to say that we’re just not going to have civil society protections for AI? I do not know about that.

Although the audience touched on the potential harms of AI, from election misinformation to conceptual dangers that don’t yet exist, as self-aware AI—Generative AI systems like ChatGPT that inspired the audience received the most attention. Several senators argued that they could increase inequality and monopolization. The only way to guard against that, said Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat who has cosponsored AI regulation in the past and supported a federal ban on facial recognition, is if Congress creates traffic rules.