The Senate plans to pursue a slew of more limited artificial intelligence-focused bills instead of one major bill, according to a key Republican negotiator in the process, indicating that Congress will be taking a bottom-up approach as it scrambles to set new rules for the emerging technology.
Sen. Todd Young, Indiana Republican, has worked closely with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer on a push for comprehensive AI legislation. He revealed Wednesday that the industry can expect a flurry of smaller-bore bills competing for consideration on the Senate floor in the near future.
Mr. Young told a Center for Strategic and International Studies event Wednesday it was “fair to say” the Senate will produce several different AI bills rather than one major bill, as some had originally hoped.
“There are already members who’ve put forward, I think, a lot of strong and thoughtful solutions to different challenges and opportunities we have and … rather than duplicating those efforts or supplanting them, we want to actually complement their efforts with our own legislative efforts,” Mr. Young said.
The proliferation of proposals suggests the Senate may not move as quickly as backers had hoped. Letting individual AI bills jockey for attention on the Senate floor represents a shift from how Mr. Schumer first outlined the process last year.
The New York Democrat organized AI insight forums that allowed senators to discuss the cutting-edge technology in private with experts and executives such as Tesla and X chief Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Mr. Schumer told a CSIS audience last year that the typical path of congressional hearings would not produce the right policies and AI would evolve before lawmakers had a chance to address it.
Not everyone was on board with the new approach. Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, declined to attend a September AI insight forum and branded it a “giant cocktail party” for Big Tech.
Mr. Schumer worked with a group of small group of lawmakers to craft comprehensive AI legislation, including Mr. Young and Sens. Martin Heinrich, New Mexico Democrat; and Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican.
Mr. Young said Wednesday that the four senators and their staffers took notes and were now “distilling those notes in readable fashion, identifying common interests and areas where we might legislate.”
Despite the original plans, however, Senate committees are going take charge of legislating AI, he said.
“In short order, I think you’ll see some committees of jurisdiction holding hearings, markups and trying to pass and send to the floor bills related to making sure we strike the right balance between regulating the risks on one hand but enabling the innovation on the other,” Mr. Young said.
The Senate has already spent several months holding hearings on AI technology and the effects Americans will face.
On Wednesday alone, the Senate Rules and Judiciary Committees held hearings examining AI’s use by the government and in criminal prosecutions, respectively.
Members of the Senate Rules Committee huddled with leaders from the Library of Congress, the Government Publishing Office and the Smithsonian Institution, while Judiciary Committee lawmakers met with a Miami police officer and a law professor.
Precisely which AI proposals will get a full Senate vote is yet to be determined, but the issue of AI affecting elections is of paramount concern for several senators.
The Rules Committee held a hearing on AI and the future of elections in September 2023 and Mr. Young said in October that the topic was one that most senators wanted to tackle heading into the November’s general elections.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.