Congressman calls for a federal Department of AI to prevent Skynet

A U.S. congressman has begun advocating for a federal division to regulate the use of synthetic intelligence, postulating a dystopian future the place AIs will make key selections and autonomous weapons roam America.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) authored an opinion piece in The New York Times on Monday, arguing that AI has emerged as a highly effective instrument that can be utilized to profit humanity — or deceive it, and worse. In truth, the instance he cited, reproduced above, wasn’t written by Lieu, however by ChatGPT, the AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. (OpenAI acquired a multibillion-dollar funding from Microsoft on Monday, amid consumer experiences that it’s unveiling a paid model.)

Lieu, who earned a B.S. diploma in Computer Science from Stanford, famous that AI is now current in all the things from good audio system to Google Maps. But the place AI fails, folks could be harm: The editorial factors out that a driver blamed Tesla’s self-driving mode for an eight-car pileup on the San Francisco Bay Bridge.

According to Lieu, Congress is solely incapable of passing laws that may regulate AI: The expertise strikes too quick, and legislators lack the mandatory information to set legal guidelines and pointers. Instead, “[w]hat we need is a dedicated agency to regulate AI,” Lieu wrote. “An agency is nimbler than the legislative process, is staffed with experts and can reverse its decisions if it makes an error. Creating such an agency will be a difficult and huge undertaking because AI is complicated and still not well understood.”

Lieu cited different companies, such because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as proof that the federal government may nonetheless regulate a new and rising expertise. But, he mentioned, the method couldn’t occur in a single day. Instead, Lieu mentioned he would suggest the formation of a non-partisan AI Commission to present suggestions on how such a federal company could possibly be shaped, what it ought to regulate and what requirements may apply.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has already printed an AI Risk Management Framework, a non-binding doc that Lieu proposes that authorities construct upon and add compliance mechanisms to. “We may not need to regulate the AI in a smart toaster, but we should regulate it in an autonomous car that can go over 100 miles per hour,” Lieu wrote.

Already, ChatGPT has nearly handed the bar examination, scoring a 50.3 p.c appropriate response fee. (A rating of 68 p.c is required to move.) Artists are involved that AI artwork might threaten their very own commissions. Is it potential Lieu is hoping to regulate AI earlier than it comes for his job, too?

Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor