The Home of Representatives has founded a Task Force on artificial intelligence that can “ensure America continues leading in this strategic area,” as Speaker Mike Johnson put it. However the announcement feels extra like a punt after years of indecision that present no signal of ending.
In a method this job drive — chaired by California Reps Ted Lieu and Jay Obernolte — is a welcome signal of Congress doing one thing, something, on an necessary matter that has grow to be the darling of tech funding. However in one other, extra necessary method, it comes off as lip service at a time many really feel AI and tech are operating circles round regulators and lawmakers.
Moreover, the dispiriting partisanship and obstruction on show every single day in Congress renders quaint any notion that this job drive would produce something of worth at any time, not to mention throughout a traditionally divisive election 12 months.
“As new innovations in AI continue to emerge, Congress and our partners in federal government must keep up. House Republicans and Democrats will work together to create a comprehensive report detailing the regulatory standards and congressional actions needed to both protect consumers and foster continued investment and innovation in AI,” stated Rep. Obernolte within the announcement.
And Rep. Lieu: “AI has the capability of changing our lives as we know it. The question is how to ensure AI benefits society instead of harming us. As a recovering Computer Science major, I know this will not be an easy or quick or one-time task, but I believe Congress has an essential role to play in the future of AI. I have been heartened to see so many Members of Congress of all political persuasions agree.”
In fact, the White House, numerous agencies, the EU and numerous different authorities and organizations are already issuing “comprehensive reports” and recommending legislative actions, however what’s another?
It appears as if Congress realized that it was the final substantive entity to behave on this industry-reshaping drive, and so representatives reached throughout the aisle to pat one another on the again for taking the smallest potential step towards future laws.
However on the similar time, with Congress dysfunctional (having handed a traditionally low variety of payments) and all eyes on the 2024 presidential election, this job drive is only a method of kicking the can down the highway till they know what they will get away with beneath the approaching administration.
Actually learning AI and its dangers and advantages just isn’t a nasty factor — nevertheless it’s somewhat late within the day to be asserting it. This job drive is lengthy overdue, and as such we might welcome it but additionally deal with it with the identical skepticism that lawmakers pandering deserves.
Everybody concerned with it will level to it when requested why they haven’t acted on AI, which many citizens worry is coming for his or her jobs or automating processes that after had a purposeful human contact. “But we started this task force!” Sure, and the EU has had their job drive engaged on this topic for the reason that pandemic days.
The announcement of the duty drive stored expectations low, with no timeline or deliverables that voters or watchdogs can maintain them to. Even the report is one thing they may solely “seek” to provide!
Moreover, contemplating the skilled businesses are at risk of declawing via Supreme Court decision, it’s arduous to even think about what a regulatory construction would appear to be a 12 months from now. Need the FTC, FCC, SEC, EPA or anybody else to assist out? They might be judicially restrained from doing so come 2025.
Maybe this job drive is Congress’s admission that in such tumultuous instances, and missing any actual perception into a difficulty, all they will do is say “we’ll look into it.”
