Multiple Senate Committees Hold Hearings On Advancement Of AI Technology

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic in the nation's capital these days, mostly due to concerns that the technology is advancing too quickly and without adequate oversight. That’s something Congress is trying to change.

Multiple Senate committees held hearings Tuesday on AI, as members try to better understand the size and scope of the technology and just what the risks are.

"We believe that the benefits of the tools we have deployed so far vastly outweigh the risks," testified Samuel Altman, the creator of ChatGPT, to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Nevertheless, Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, told committee members he believes regulatory intervention by the government will be critical in mitigating the risks of certain AI applications.

"For example," Altman said, "the U.S. government might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements for development and release of AI models above a threshold of capabilities."

Both Democrats and Republicans expressed concern Tuesday that AI can, either intentionally or unintentionally, inject biases into outcomes.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic," Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said, "we witnessed accelerated use of artificial intelligence technologies to monitor and suppress public debate."

In a Homeland Security Committee hearing focused on how governments -- federal, state, and local -- are and should be using AI, Sen. Paul voiced concern that some are attempting to use AI to, in effect, censor speech they dislike.

Senator James Lankford, a member of the committee, used some of his time to press the witnesses for an explanation of what constitutes 'responsible Artificial Intelligence', a term that often comes up in discussions about AI.

"We’ve got to know what that definition is," Sen. Lankford (R-OK) said in an interview following the hearing, "so we can make sure we’re protecting the American people from irresponsible AI."

Lankford said, as we’ve seen throughout history, technology is again outpacing government regulations. He says there's no doubt that Congress needs to take some regulatory action and the national conversation we’re having right now will help determine what regulation is needed.

"And we’ve got to actually land on what’s the right way to be able to manage this," Lankford stated, "so we don’t limit the good things about AI but we’re also making sure we’re protecting the privacy and the rights of individuals to be able to speak and react."