Artificial intelligence town halls? House committee weighs new approach before writing AI rules – Washington Times

The House Homeland Security Committee may host town hall meetings for lawmakers on artificial intelligence and could bring in tech experts to help lawmakers better understand rapidly evolving technology before writing rules to govern it.

During a Wednesday hearing focused on how AI can be used to secure and defend the U.S., lawmakers acknowledged a new format may help them get their arms around a deeply complex set of issues.

What I may do is have a town hall type thing, where were the town hall and theyre on the [dais] and were just asking questions, Rep. Mark Green, Homeland Security Committee chairman and Tennessee Republican, said during Wednesdays hearing. I think that would be more informative. And maybe some presentations, so to speak, on data poisoning for AI and all that kind of stuff.

The town hall format would be familiar to tech experts who frequently field requests from Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer convened AI insight forums starting last year. The New York Democrat also worked with a group of three other lawmakers to develop comprehensive AI legislation.

Mr. Schumers closed-door forums attracted top tech minds such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Metas Mark Zuckerberg and Googles Sundar Pichai, and theevents gave senators a chance to ask questions without the usual time constraints of formal Capitol Hill hearings.

But the forums also had their share of detractors.

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Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, criticized the forums as a giant cocktail party for Big Tech. At the same time, Democratic-led committees in the Senate did not appear thrilled about the potential for Mr. Schumers effort to encroach on legislation under their jurisdiction.

After the Senate events, Mr. Schumers group last week produced an AI roadmap. It didnot propose specific legislation, but did call for at least $32 billion more spending on tech research and development.

The House Homeland Security Committees purview is more narrow and fixated on threats involving cybersecurity, infrastructure, and Americas physical borders, among other things.

In the absence of congressional rules, President Biden is implementing an AI executive order that includes guidance for federal agencies.

Mr. Biden has also dispatched administration officials to meet with foreign governments on AI rules, including a first meeting with Chinas government in Geneva last week.

Europe is pressing ahead with new AI rules. In March, the European Parliament approved the EU AI Act, which bans various AI applications such as emotion recognition and scraping of facial images.

EU states gave additional agreement to the law this week, which the Council of the EU portrayed on Tuesday as the final green light on the new AI rules.

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Artificial intelligence town halls? House committee weighs new approach before writing AI rules - Washington Times