More meetings about AI regulation being discussed in US Congress

National politicians in the United States have honed the ability to look very busy working on issues they have no ability to or intension of tangibly addressing.

Some senators (upper house) and representatives (lower house) say they want to yoke artificial intelligence like a once-ornery plow ox. But commissions and innovation frameworks do not a national strategy make.

Still, onward they march to show voters their central importance in regulating AI, which is in the spotlight of popular culture.

Democratic Sen. and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says, “Don’t count Congress out!” in regulating AI so that it is useful and safe. The algorithms are going to be “as transformative as electricity.”

Schumer’s most immediate projects are a framework and “an all-hands-on-deck effort in the Senate.”

His framework, which providentially can spell out SAFE Innovation for its name, is designed to promote security, accountability, foundational values like democracy, explainability and innovation.

Democrats control the Senate, so they stand a chance to coordinate a lot of hand-waving on the topic.

Democrats in the Republican-held House, however, will have a much harder time making progress on regulating AI. They are proposing a law that would create a commission to study regulating AI.

“Congress must not stay on the sidelines,” Rep. Ted Lieu said in a statement supporting the legislation.

These aren’t the first efforts by the federal government to put a rein on AI, but the work to dates has accomplished no substantive rules that can be taken seriously in an archly divided Congress.

Article Topics

AI  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  regulation  |  United States