More than 20 tech and civil society leaders, including the chief executives of five of the 10 biggest US companies, are set to appear at a closed-door Senate meeting on Wednesday to shape how artificial intelligence is regulated.
(Bloomberg) — More than 20 tech and civil society leaders, including the chief executives of five of the 10 biggest US companies, are set to appear at a closed-door Senate meeting on Wednesday to shape how artificial intelligence is regulated.
The meeting, which was organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, will include a prestigious, and possibly combustible, mix of personalities with diverging views on how to write the rules for AI. The CEOs of Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc. and OpenAI will appear alongside rivals and industry critics to discuss possible guardrails for AI that balance the risks and rewards of the technology.
Apart from disagreements over policy, there is also personal friction among some of the attendees. Elon Musk (the world’s richest man) previously proposed a cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg (the world’s 10th richest man) and took to his own social media platform to criticize Bill Gates (the world’s 4th richest man) for allegedly shorting Tesla Inc. stock.
The high-profile summit comes as part of Schumer’s broader efforts to get the Senate up to speed on the rapidly evolving technology. While AI could revolutionize industries from health care to logistics, it also poses a number of risks, including spreading misinformation, amplifying bias and displacing jobs. Some industry critics have previously raised concerns about the potential for tech executives to have too much influence over legislation.
Regulate AI? Here’s What That Might Mean in the US: QuickTake
In corporate blog posts and White House meetings over the past year, some of the companies represented on Wednesday have proposed a new government agency to regulate AI, a licensing regime for the most powerful AI models and transparency requirements for AI-generated content. Other companies like IBM have pushed back on some of these suggestions and offered alternative frameworks for legislation.
Read More: Schumer’s AI Supergroup Pushing the Tech to Top of Senate Agenda
Most of the executives in the room have, in one way or another, urged policymakers to focus on setting rules for the way AI is used rather than for the actual development of the technology. This approach is likely to emerge as a theme among the executives, despite their disagreement on the particulars.
That regulatory model, however, probably won’t be sufficient for leaders from organized labor and civil society who will also be in the room Wednesday, warning about the risks that AI poses for workers, mental health and democracy. Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, and Meredith Stiehm, president of the Writers Guild of America West, are among those expected to be in attendance.
Some senators have already questioned the practice of giving tech executives a platform to explain how they would like to be regulated, especially behind closed doors. Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren on Monday said the best way to “hear from the tech billionaires is a hearing” in public where people can push back on their arguments.
South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds, who worked with Schumer to organize the set of briefings to educate senators on AI, said the goal of this format is to allow for “lots of different opinions in a very short period of time.” He said the aim is to “be as frank as possible, not necessarily grandstanding in front of a camera.”
“They’ll give us their opinions, we’ll take that with a grain of salt, but most certainly we’ll all come out with more information than we had going in” Rounds told Bloomberg News Tuesday.
The forum is set to run from 10 a.m. to as late as 5 p.m. ET with an hour break for lunch at 1 p.m. Each participant will have three minutes for an opening statement, followed by an exchange of ideas, possibly moderated by Schumer, according to several people briefed on the format. Companies have the option to substitute someone in for the CEO after the morning session, the people said.
–With assistance from Steven T. Dennis and Kailey Leinz.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.