Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said the Senate is months away from taking up artificial intelligence legislation that will piggyback on President Biden’s pending executive order on the emerging tech.
Mr. Biden’s order is expected to be unveiled as soon as next week and will usher in sweeping changes to the federal government’s approach to AI.
Mr. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Thursday that senators crafting AI legislation plan to meet with the president soon and noted there are limits to what the government can accomplish through executive action.
Democrats and Republicans are not butting heads over AI thus far, according to Mr. Schumer, but an agreed-upon AI legislative package is not ready yet.
“It’s not going to be days or weeks before we put out proposals, but it’s not going to be years either,” Mr. Schumer said at a Washington Post Live event. “We have to do it in, sort of, months-type time.”
He said the Senate’s “top, quick priority” for AI legislation is to deal with elections. Lawmakers fear the new tech can lead people to lose trust in the political process or enable tricksters to manipulate voters.
Mr. Schumer said it remains to be determined whether AI legislation for elections will move forward in isolation or as part of a broader package before next year’s November elections. He said Republicans’ concerns about AI risks for national security, especially involving China, will create an opportunity for bipartisanship.
“There’s going to be mainstream support for this and particularly, a lot of our more conservative Republicans are sort of similar to me in a certain sense — we’ve been China hawks,” Mr. Schumer said. “And this, if we don’t do anything, China’s going to get ahead of us.”
Spending for AI legislation is expected to cost $32 billion at minimum, according to Mr. Schumer who said that funding provisions for AI may find their way into other legislation moving through Congress.
A lot of question marks remain about congressional action on AI. Mr. Schumer said he spoke with new House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday and did not know his thoughts about AI legislation.
Mr. Biden is not waiting for Congress. Federal Chief Information Security Officer Chris DeRusha said earlier this month the coming executive order was a first step in the governance of AI.
Guidelines for federal agencies to follow regarding the responsible use of AI will come soon after the executive order. Some federal agencies are already bracing for those changes, including federal cyber officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Next week, Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to the U.K. to discuss AI policy and represent the U.S. at a summit on AI safety.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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