When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced a “huge effort” in April to put the Senate’s stamp on artificial intelligence policy, he spoke of an “urgent move” and said a legislative plan begins to take shape. several weeks.
“In the coming weeks, Leader Schumer plans to refine the proposal with stakeholders from academia, advocacy organizations, 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’s comments to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Schumer said the process of getting the input for the plan is months away.
“Later this fall, I will gather leading minds on artificial intelligence here in Congress for a series of AI Insight Forums to lay a new foundation for AI policy,” he said. Schumer said developers, scientists, CEOs, national security experts and others will have to do “years of work in a few months,” a sign that the effort could be well underway next year.
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Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said this week that his vision for how to regulate AI is still months away.
According to him, once this input is collected, it is up to the legislators to listen and translate their ideas into law. He outlined a wide range of issues to cover, including how to protect innovation, intellectual property rights, risk management, national security, guarding against “doomsday scenarios,” transparency , “disclosure” and privacy.
Making the job more difficult, Schumer said bipartisan support is critical to the effort and said more committees are expected to step in.
Schumer this week announced what he called the SAFE Innovation Framework for AI, which aims to protect US innovation in this emerging field but ensure there are guardrails to ensure security, promote accountability, support of human freedom, civil rights and justice, and guarantee that the AI outputs can be interpreted by users.
But Schumer laid out similar goals in April when he talked about the need to inform users, reduce the potential harm caused by AI outputs and ensure that AI systems conform to “the values of America.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris has taken the lead on AI, but the Biden administration has so far issued non-binding guidelines. (Mireya Acierto | Getty Images)
Jake Denton, a technology policy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said he sees Schumer’s recent announcement mostly as a sign that the process hasn’t gone too far.
“The goalpost seems to keep moving,” Denton told Fox News Digital. “We never really get the bill text. We never get the details.”
Schumer’s office declined to comment for this story.
Denton said the basic principles Schumer outlined twice today are accepted ideas, but he said the trick would be to make this law. Several ideas have floated around Capitol Hill — including a commission to guide AI policy or even a new agency that could license AI technology and ensure it produces unbiased outputs. or discrimination.
Denton said it’s possible that Congress is months or even years away from passing significant legislation to regulate AI based on the current pace. He said the precedent is there, because Congress allowed other technologies to develop before stepping in.
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Schumer said expert-led discussions this fall will inform his approach to regulating AI. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“Our lawmakers are still in the process of trying to figure out how to manage social media,” he said.
While the effort could easily drift into next year, Schumer said this proposal is the most efficient way to get a regulatory plan through congress.
“If we follow the usual path – holding congressional hearings with opening statements and each member asking questions five minutes at a time on different issues – we will not be able to make the right policies,” he said. .
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“By the time we act, AI will be new,” he added. “It can’t be done. A new approach is needed.”
