Cantwell Expects ‘Structured Discussion’ on AI Regulation in September
There will be a “structured discussion” about how to regulate AI when Congress returns in September, but the most important thing remains passing privacy legislation, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Monday.
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Cantwell noted AI discussions led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Congress is “literally full of ideas” about what to do with AI, she said during a panel her office hosted in Seattle, citing bipartisan legislation from Sens. John Thune, R-S.D. and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii (see 2307270058). The Filter Bubble Transparency Act would require platforms to notify users when they’re using algorithms to manipulate feeds, and users would have the option to turn off algorithmic filters for content ranking. However, the most “important thing” is to pass privacy legislation, Cantwell said. That would help prevent algorithmic bias and allow existing laws to adapt to the technology, she said. AI is changing everything, so it would be “strange” if the laws don’t change with it, University of Washington School of Law professor Ryan Calo said during the panel.
Amazon is focused on AI, data and innovating faster, said Swami Sivasubramanian, Amazon Web Services vice president-machine learning. What used to take six months can now be done in one to two weeks because of cloud computing advancements, he said, calling AI a “game-changer.” That's “one of the most exciting things that is happening,” he said.
AI technology is advancing much faster than the standards, policies and governance needed to ensure trust in the technology, said NIST Director Laurie Locascio. She said her agency is working on follow-up efforts to the NIST AI risk management framework. That includes creating a generative AI public working group populated with users, developers and managers, she said. NIST is also working with the Labor Department on employment bias.
AI should be used to make lives better, not to increase corporate profits at the expense of workers’ quality of life, said Cherika Carter, secretary-treasurer, AFL-CIO Washington State Labor Council. The AFL-CIO is focused on AI’s influence over education, jobs, labor and algorithmic bias, she said.
Industry should embrace an “extreme openness” on AI, said Allen Institute for AI CEO Ali Farhadi. This means opening the AI models' application programming interfaces so everyone can learn from every major development in AI, he said. Everyone should have a step-by-step guide to how companies built these models, he said.