Senate Majority Leader Schumer unveils strategy to regulate AI amid dire warnings

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) unveiled a legislative framework for regulating artificial intelligence (AI), warning that “Congress must join the AI revolution” now or risk losing its only chance to regulate the rapidly moving technology. Majority Leader Schumer also said that starting in Fall 2023, he would launch a series of “AI Insight Forums” featuring top AI developers, executives, scientists, community leaders, workers, national security experts, and others. Those discussions, he said, will form the foundation for more detailed policy proposals for Congress. Schumer's legislative framework, the “SAFE Innovation for AI” framework, has five central pillars:

• Security: Shore up national security by examining AI threats from foreign adversaries or rogue groups, and ensure economic security for workers, especially low-skilled, low-income workers.
• Accountability: Support the creation of “responsible” systems to address things like misinformation and bias; support creators by addressing copyright concerns and protecting intellectual property.
• Foundations: Require that AI systems align with democratic values at their core, protect elections, promote AI’s societal benefits while avoiding potential harms, and stop the Chinese Communist Party from writing the rules of the road on AI.
• Explain: Companies should share how the AI system arrived at a particular answer in simple and understandable terms so users can better understand why the system produced a particular answer and where that answer came from.
• Innovation: Support US innovation in AI technologies that focuses on unlocking the potential of AI and maintaining American leadership in the technology.