This article will break down what precisely these boards are and aren’t, and what may come out of them. The boards can be closed to the general public and press, so I chatted with folks at one firm—Hugging Face—that did get the invite about what they’re anticipating and what their priorities are heading into the discussions.
What are the boards?
Schumer first introduced the boards on the finish of June as a part of his AI laws initiative, referred to as SAFE Innovation. In ground remarks on Tuesday, Schumer mentioned he’s planning for “an open dialogue about how Congress can act on AI: the place to begin, what inquiries to ask, and find out how to construct a basis for SAFE AI innovation.”
The SAFE framework, as a reminder, will not be a legislative proposal however slightly a set of priorities that Schumer laid out with regards to AI regulation. These priorities embody selling innovation, supporting the American tech business, understanding the labor ramifications of AI, and mitigating safety dangers. Wednesday’s assembly is the primary of 9 deliberate classes. Subsequent conferences will cowl matters similar to “IP points, workforce points, privateness, safety, alignment, and lots of extra,” Schumer mentioned in his remarks.
Who’s, and isn’t, invited?
The invite record for the primary discussion board made a splash when it was made public two weeks in the past. The record, first reported by Axios, numbers 22 folks and contains plenty of tech firm executives who do plan on attending, similar to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, former Microsoft CEO Invoice Gates, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, X CEO Elon Musk, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Whereas a few civil society and AI ethics researchers had been included—specifically, AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler and AI accountability researcher Deb Raji—observers and distinguishedtech coverage voices had been fast to criticize the record, partially for its tilt towards executives poised to revenue from AI.
The inclusion of so many tech leaders could possibly be a political sign to reassure the business. Tech corporations, for the second, are positioned to have lots of energy and affect over AI coverage.
What can we anticipate out of them?
We don’t actually know what the outcomes of those boards can be, and contemplating that they’re closed door, we’d by no means actually have full perception into the specifics of the conversations or their implications for Congress. They’re anticipated to be listening classes, the place AI leaders will assist to coach legislators on AI and questions on its regulation. In Schumer’s remarks from Tuesday, he mentioned that “after all, the actual legislative work will are available committees, however the AI boards will give us the nutrient agar, the info and the challenges that we have to perceive with the intention to attain this aim.”
The boards are thought-about categorised, but when we do get some details about what was mentioned, I’ll be listening for some potential themes for US AI regulation that I highlighted again in July: fostering the American tech business, aligning AI with “democratic values,” and coping with (or ignoring) present questions on Part 230 and on-line speech.
