Global Courant
When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., announced in April a “major effort” to put the Senate’s stamp on artificial intelligence policy, he spoke of an “urgency to act” and said a legislative plan would take shape in a matter of weeks.
“In the coming weeks, Leader Schumer plans to refine the proposal in collaboration with stakeholders from academia, advocacy groups, industry and government,” he said in an April 13 statement.
But on Thursday, more than two months later, Schumer indicated that the legislation may not be ready until 2024. In Wednesday remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Schumer said the process of getting input for the plan is still months away.
“Later this fall, I will convene the top artificial intelligence leaders here in Congress for a series of AI Insight Forums to help build a new foundation for AI policy,” he said. Schumer said developers, scientists, CEOs, national security experts and others have “years of work to do in a matter of months,” a sign that the effort could stretch well into the next year.
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Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, DN.Y., said this week that his vision for regulating AI is still months away.
He said once this input is collected, it will be up to lawmakers to listen and turn their ideas into law. He outlined a wide range of topics to cover, including how to protect innovation, intellectual property rights, risk management, national security, protection against “doomsday scenarios”, transparency, “explainability”, and privacy.
To make the job even more difficult, Schumer said bipartisan support is critical to the effort and said several committees are expected to contribute.
Schumer this week announced what he called the SAFE Innovation Framework for AI, which aims to protect US innovation in this emerging field but ensures guardrails are in place to ensure safety, promote accountability, human freedom, civil rights and justice, and ensure that AI outputs can be explained to users.
But Schumer laid out similar goals in April when he spoke of the need to educate users, reduce the potential harm caused by AI outputs and ensure AI systems are aligned with “American values.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris has led the way on AI, but the Biden administration has so far released non-binding guidelines. (Mireya Acierto | Getty Images)
Jake Denton, a technology policy research associate at the Heritage Foundation, said he sees Schumer’s recent announcement mainly as a sign that the process has not progressed very far.
“The goal post seems to keep moving,” Denton told Fox News Digital. “We never really get the invoice text. We never get the details.”
Schumer’s office declined to comment on this story.
Denton said the basic principles Schumer has outlined twice now are generally accepted ideas, but he said the trick is to put them into law. Several ideas have been bouncing around Capitol Hill, including a committee to direct AI policy or even a new agency that can license AI technology and ensure it produces results that are free of bias or discrimination.
Denton said Congress may be months or even years away from passing major legislation to regulate AI at its current pace. He said the precedent is there as Congress allowed other technology to flourish before stepping into it.
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Schumer said expert-led discussions this fall will shape his approach to regulating AI. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“Our legislators are still trying to figure out how to handle social media,” he noted.
While the effort could easily drift into next year, Schumer said this proposal is the most efficient path to get a congressional regulatory plan in place.
“If we go the typical route — holding congressional hearings with opening statements and each member asking questions on different issues for five minutes at a time — we just won’t be able to come up with the right policy,” he said.
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“By the time we act, AI will have evolved into something new,” he added. “This is not going to work. A new approach is needed.”
Pete Kasperowicz is a political editor at Fox News Digital.
