How Congress is Preparing to Regulate Artificial Intelligence

Tuesday - July 4 2023, 19:15 UTC - 1 year ago

Starting this fall, Senator Schumer plans to kick off invite-only discussion groups on AI regulation. Potential regulation could involve bans on certain applications, such as sentiment analysis or facial recognition. AI-generated disinformation may be more likely to be believed, so comprehensive tech legislation may be introduced to protect against this.

So where is this going? Well, nowhere in the short-term, as politicians skip off for their summer break. But starting this fall, Schumer plans to kick off invite-only discussion groups in Congress to look at particular parts of AI. In the meantime, Engler says we might hear some discussions about the banning of certain applications of AI, like sentiment analysis or facial recognition, echoing parts of the EU regulation. Lawmakers could also try to revive existing proposals for comprehensive tech legislation—for example, the Algorithmic Accountability Act.

For now, all eyes are on Schumer's big swing. "The idea is to come up with something so comprehensive and do it so fast. I expect there will be a pretty dramatic amount of attention," says Engler.

What else I’m reading .

We may be more likely to believe disinformation generated by AI, according to new research covered by my colleague Rhiannon Williams. Researchers from the University of Zurich found that people were 3% less likely to identify inaccurate tweets created by AI than those written by humans.

It’s only one study, but if it’s backed up by further research, it’s a worrying finding. As Rhiannon writes, "The generative AI boom puts powerful, accessible AI tools in the hands of everyone, including bad actors. Models like GPT-3 can generate incorrect text that appears convincing, which could be used to generate false narratives quickly and cheaply for conspiracy theorists and disinformation campaigns." .